
X>'>^—'4 



Book l_^ 



Grand Army Flag Day 



T(hode Island 









U Ce 







February Twelfth 

1909 



Lincoln Centenary 
1809 



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ABRAHAM LINCOLN IN I860. 



i>tat? of jRitoup Jslano 
Sipariumtt nf lidurattmt. 



COMMISSIONER'S MESSAGE. 

In keeping Grand Army Flag Day in Rhode Island for 1909 we commemorate the 
one hundredth anniversary of Abraham Lincoln's birth. Among school celebra- 
tions has never occurred a more significant event, a more inspiring opportunity, or 
a worthier memorial ; for our martyred Lincoln has become, for the youth of Amer- 
ica, the "epitome of Americanism," the bond of American patriotism, the incarna- 
tion of American civic ideals. For the worthy observance of the Lincoln Centenary 
may we receive inspiration from the knowledge that on this day the Republic's pa- 
triot army of the future has mustered for its country's service in his name and under 
the old flag, and from the faith that the children and youth of Rhode Island, with 
the young patriots of sister states, will honor his memory, cherish his ideals, and 
maintain the principles of his life with the same patriotic devotion as animated their 
fathers who supported his purposes at home, in camp, and on the battlefield. 

May every pupil in our schools have a share in the observance of this day and 
feel that in his tribute of word or song he is acting the part of a grateful and loyal 
citizen of our great country. Costly monuments and eloquent memorials express 
the grateful affection and reverent honor of the Republic for Abraham Lincoln ; 
but there can be no finer tribute, no purer honor, no sweeter reverence, than that 
arising from the hearts of America's school children. 

A study of Lincoln's life is a study of the American people — their beliefs, ideals, 
achievements, and humble beginnings. He is the best expression of American de- 
mocracy. His life is the best exposition of American history. In him were incar- 
nate our great national principles of freedom, fraternity, equality. In him were 
the virtues that make a people great — truth, justice and faith, humility, mercy and 
charity. His confidence in the people was hardly less than his belief in the right. 
So great was his faith in the power of righteousness in human affairs that he never 
wavered in his belief in a government by the people. So long as the name of Lin- 
coln shall be revered faith in popular government will abide in human hearts and 
hope will brighten the humblest lot. 

Few may aspire to the greatness of Lincoln, but the humblest child may become 
like him in traits of personality that contributed to his power and have endeared 



him to all good people. In growing into the likeness of the great and good Lincoln 
we must become more gentle, kind and thoughtful, more patient, helpful and dili- 
gent, more reverent, obedient and loyal. Like him we may labor, and even suffer, 
for our neighbor, our country, and our God. 

If ethical values are measured by personal cost, what shall be the appraisement 
of , incoln's moral worth? From birth to death he paid the price of suffering, in 
the hardships of childb 1, tin- struggles of youth, the toil of age, the misunder- 
standing hate and vindication of his opponents, his grief for a divided country, 
his sorrow for darkened homes, and his final martyrdom. He, too, was " a man of 
v,„-n,ws and acquainted with grief " 

" The weary form, that rested not, 
Save in a martyr's grave; 
The care-worn face that none forgot, 
Turned to the kneeling slave. 

"We rest in peace, where his sad eyes 
Saw peril, strife, and pain; 
His was the awful sacrifice, 
And ours the priceless gain." 

Among the lessons that pupils may learn from Lincoln's life may they not miss 
the great truth, exemplified in him. that personal sacrifice and endurance are the 
price of high moral worth and tin- power of service. 

••Ib-roic soul, in homely garb half hid, 
Sincere, sagacious, melancholy, quaint. 

What he endured, no less than what he did. 

Has reared his monument and crowned him saint." 




( 'ommissioner <>f Public Schools. 



■ .\ blend oi mirth and sadness, smiles and wars. 
A quaint knight-errant of the piom 

A homely hero born ..t -l. ii- and Bod ; 

A peasant i" ini i . a mastei | ' tod 




PROGRAM. 



-> Song 

SALUTE TO THE FLAG 
COMMISSIONER'S MESSAGE 
Song 
RHODE ISLAND'S TRIBUTE TO LINCOLN 
Song 
TRIBUTES TO LINCOLN 
Song 
WORDS OF LINCOLN 
Song 
LIFE OF LINCOLN 
Song 
STORIES OF LINCOLN 



BRIEF ADDRESSES 



Song 




I. 

RHODE ISLAND'S TRIBUTE TO LINCOLN. 

[Contributed by citizens expressly for the observance of the Lincoln Centenary in the schools of Rhode 
Island.] 

To-day an enlightened and prosperous American citizenship, blest with the full- 
learning and culture, halts in its irresistible onward march to bow in defer- 
ential homage to the lofty patriotism and magnificent spirit of Abraham Lincoln. 
Surmounting obstacles of birth and poverty beyond the comprehension of the pres- 
ent age, setting a new standard for American ideals, and standing valiantly by the 
colors he implanted thereon until there was firmly welded the Union we glorify to- 
day, the martyred President, on this centenary of his birth, speaks from the tomb 
living lessons of loyalty, steadfastness, and indomitable devotion to duty-lessons 
which th e youth of the land must learn, that this great Republic may enduri 

Aram /. Pothier, Governor of Rhode Island. 



Abraham Lincoln's Life was as completer is ever vouchsafed to the life of any 
human being to be. « mly one P. rson could in fact utter the word, "it is finished." 
and that a divine Person as well as human. But there seemed nothing lacking 
when Lincoln's life went out. He was brought into being for a purpose, a cause. 
He lived and died for that cause. He was a martyr just in the same sense .hat we 
look upon the earlj Christians as martyrs. They were divine instruments, and so 
was Lin. -in a divine instrument. The fruit of the spirit was no more visible in the 
. those whodied that Christianity might live than in the work ... Lin- 
((iln that a republic might live and human freedom be established forever therein. 
-,,„. Bible, the Declaration oi Independence, and the in. G rge Washington 

u „, Lincoln's inspiration and his guides, lb- was a. once a ty] f < »ld Testament 

like Elijah and Solomon, and of New Testament characters, like Paul 
and [ohn. lb ntle i he *" bold, yet meek. He perl 

,ith the meekness ol a dove. To Lincoln there could be no perma- 

, hall -lave and ..iw hall free, no n,o,e than to Paul, the apostle 



to the Gentiles, could the church of Christ be at one and the same time composed 
of children of Agar, the bondwoman, and of Sara, the free. Paul's preaching and 
work was to the end that all men might enjoy the freedom wherewith Christ had 
clothed them. Lincoln's life work was to make the Declaration of Independence a 
reality. To make this a free country in deed as well as in name, to establish human 
freedom, to preserve the Union, and to perpetuate this republic were Lincoln's aims 
and accomplishments. In order to do these great things Lincoln found himself in 
opposition to many of his fellow countrymen; but he loved even his enemies, and 
to-day those who were his enemies have learned to love him. He had charily for 
all and malice towards none, and in this same spirit Southern statesmen on the anni- 
versary of Lincoln's birthday are found extolling his virtues among their fellow 
countrymen of the north. 

Recently a high authority stated that Lincoln was not attached to any religious 
sect or creed. Other authority has stated that he was a Methodist. But be that as 
it may, he evidently lived in close communion with the Divine Ruler of Nations. 
He possessed attributes that were divine. His life work could not have been so com- 
plete and successful without divine interposition. Love, joy, peace, long-suffering, 
gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance — the fruits of the spirit— were 
plainly evident in all his ways. The fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of 
man were his tenets. He had faith, that could remove mountains, in a divinity that 
was shaping his destiny and that of the American republic, and the love he felt for 
his fellow men was a moving and living force within his wonderful nature that found 
outward expression in many simple ways. 

Abraham Lincoln was great because he was meek, because he was honest, be- 
cause he was good, because he suffered for others. " His life was gentle and the 
elements so mixed in him that nature might stand up and say to all the world, ' This 
was a man.' " 

A din B. C apron, Representative in Congress. 



I regard the observance of Flag Day by the public schools of the State as of 
vital importance. It presents a fitting occasion to dwell on the life and character of 
Abraham Lincoln, the purest patriot and wisest statesman our country has ever 
known. His love of liberty, of truth and justice, and his battle for the rights of the 
oppressed will ever live in the world's history. 

It also presents an excellent opportunity to instill in the minds of youth the 
principles underlying our system of government, to impress them with the impor- 
tance of our country, to stimulate their pride, and to imbue them with a loyal and 
patriotic spirit. 

Walter A. Read. General Treasurer. 



tu 

ma 



The school children of Rhode Island have on this occasion a most unusua oppor. 
oUyfor a manifestation of appreciation of Abraham Lincoln. I have .Ken re- 
rked that the selection of February ,sth for the celebration of Ma, Lay was a 
,„,,„. one Never before has it appeared more felicitous than to-day. One hundred 

J Abraham Lincoln, the greatest of al, American, next to Washington, was 

„,,, His life and career are perhaps as typically American as those of any man 
lhe Republic has ever produced. He exemplified in ever, respect what we are proud 
t0 111 ,„ l ,., im as the representative American virtues, simplicity of manner, energy 
„, ,,.,, n , frankness, patience, and wit His struggle tor success ,s the greatest 
ZLL that can possibly he held out to the American youth. Ltncoln showed. 
, , h au an, other American, the possibilities of .his Republic From the hum- 
I. t ,,, k of life, hv his own intrinsic merit, he won his way to the h.ghest office n 
Z world. Well indeed may Rhode fsland and all America turn to Ltncoln scarcer 

oly and, united in happy accord, praise and tor this g i nunc He, more t an 

1 other, preserved the Flag for American posterity. May h,s memory reman 
"er green May his words and his example be ever an incenttve to Amencan youth 
and a source of pride to all the nations of the -^^^ ., R ff ^ 

The controlling motive in the life.of Abraham Lincoto was loyalty. In his 
y ounger days he was loyal to himself b, making the bes, posnble use of the few 

, , r ", tie* that were his. to his middle life he was loyal to h,s conv.ct.ons * 

,,,,. I private duty, by defending or advocating them. In his las, cars ewas 

,, t0 J v tr, and to the world by carrying .he great respons.bu.t,es o, pub- 

UeCership with perfect stery of self an th a life that had .n tt m 

tor ' and charily for all. E x-Gnermr George II. Utter. 

,,„, vh , M fa, us the boys and girls in our schools acquire principles , ha. make 

for good , iti.en.hip, are tb institutions effective as patriotic agents 

., oHurrahf I to doff the hat or wave th. Ikerohtef as the Stars and 

stri0 e 8 Sutter in the bn e*e I bands pla, heart-stirring musi, I- no, enough. 

, ,„„,«„, .emp.ifi ■ loiti^nship, «... «-,„,,, 

, ™rch into battle, at. all of ■. .try. noble though that ts. but to ft. 

r t h"r and perhaps £a, e insidious foea than behind nan or ehargm g 

,- In striking a lug,,..,- note, pur,,,,,-,,, ansa willingness to .,.,,,- sir 

„,.„,, ,,,a,v aseinthec : civic right, sness. 

""' ., „.,,,, ltra Uor to his nation, it attacks corruption in natmnal. state, 

;;:;:::':;;,;;::::.: „ i„, .,,„,„ ., K , *« < 

^ t.i.i..l .creteembodi I the principle. « lated in the Golden 

Rule Henry Fletcher, Mayo, of Providen 



t 

From Veterans who knew Lincoln. 

Forty-seven years ago Abraham Lincoln, then president of the United States, 
visited a camp of Rhode Island Volunteers, at Washington, for the purpose of assist- 
ing vis in the presentation of a set of regimental colors. I was at the time a second 
lieutenant in the regiment, and it fell to my lot to receive the colors. As the flags 
were put into my hands, President Lincoln said: " Young man. guard these colors 
as you would the honor of your mother. Fight for than, and, if needs be, die for 
them, for should they fall, free government will disappear from off the earth; in- 
justice and oppression will continue to reign; right, liberty, and peace will have 
no abiding place among us." 

Thirty-seven years later, when the manhood of Rhode Island and of the nation 
burned with patriotic fervor to make Cuba free, I, as an "Old Soldier," had the honor 
of bearing and presenting to Rhode Island's soldiers of the Spanish War the dear 
old Stars and Stripes, under whose folds so many Rhode Island men marched and 
fought during the long years of the great Civil War. With the words of the great 
Lincoln, I presented the colors to the First Rhode Island, United States Volunteer 
Infantry, mustered at Quonset Point, and gave Godspeed to men and officers about 
to march forth to meet toil and danger in the service of their country. 

Again, on the one hundredth anniversary of Lincoln's birth, do I hold aloft our 
country's flag and present to the youth of Rhode Island his stirring words, still ring- 
ing in my ears and still dear to my heart. Again, to youth mustering for life's cam- 
paign of civic duty, whether for peace or war, let me say: March forth to fight the 
battles of our country, fearing God only ; and may victory and honor be yours in full 
measure wherever you may go. — Gen. William Ames, Past Dep't Conid'r, G. A. R. 

In common with all who are familiar with the life of Abraham Lincoln, I regard 
him as one of the greatest figures in American history. Considering the admiration 
I feel for his character it is a source of pleasure to remember that I once shook 
hands with him even though all the details of that meeting were not as vividly im- 
pressed upon my mind as doubtless they would have been had I been of more 
mature age. The incident happened in Railroad Hall, in this city. Following the 
noted debate in Illinois between Lincoln and Stephen A. Douglas, the former was in 
great demand as a speaker by the organizations of his political party all over the 
country. In this way he came to Providence, and my father drove from Apponaug 
to hear him, taking me with him. The hall, which the older people will remember 
was in the old depot, was the largest in the city at that time. It was packed to over- 
flowing, and after the speaking Lincoln held a reception. My father took me with 
him when he got in the line formed of those who wished to meet Lincoln. I was a 
rather small boy, perhaps 15 years of age, and naturally my impressions were in 
accordance. I distinctly remember saying to my father, after we had passed along: 
"What an awfully big hand that man has." Certainly his mental powers were as 
tremendous as his physical forces then seemed to me. His fame grows with the 
years. — Gen. Charles R. Bray ton, Past Dep't Conid'r, G. A. R. 



Abraham Lincoln put his trust in God and never deviated from the paths of rec- 
titude and civic righteousness 

He was honest in his personal and public life. 

He h.ved his fellow men and gave freedom to those in bondage. 

Therefore the people trusted him. had confidence in his integrity, and now revere 

his memory. 

His life is an inspiration to the youth of our country. 

Gen. Ehsha II. Rhodes, Past Senior Vice Commander-in-Chief ". G. A. R. 

Among the great men in the history of our country, the two who stand first in 
achievement and honor are Washington and Lincoln. Upon them had fallen the 
task of leading the nation through new and rugged paths to noble and great results. 

Under Washington the nation was brought into existence. Under Lincoln it 
was firmly established and purified from the taint of slavery. 

Both were great men who showed their greatness in simply doing faithfully the 
tasks that fell to them to do. There was, however, a great difference in their ad- 
vantages in early life. Washington was reared amid comfortable surroundings and 
received a good education. Lincoln was born in poverty and had only such educa- 
tion as he could gather, for the most part, by himself. He overcame the great odds 
against him and stands out the foremost man in our history. The story of his life 
work i> one of ambition, endurance, faithfulness, and success. His was a true man- 

h 1 because it was honest, earnest, and unselfish. Beloved in life, the pathos of his 

tragic death has drawn our hearts to him in tender memory, and we all unite in re- 
vering him as the greatest of Americans. 

John 11. Stiness, Ex-Chief Justice of Hie Supreme Court. 

It seems really unnecessary to contribute to the Lincoln Centenary any patriotic 
Ben1 .,, of Lincoln, his life and achievements, are all an inspiration 

to patriotic endeavors, and to honorable and righteous civic servl 

Colonel Robert 11. 1- Goddard, 

It is a privilege to be allowed to say a word to the school children of the State 
on the Centenary ol Presidenl I. in,, .In. Fifty eight yearsagol wasgraduated from 
tl„- Providence High -School, and h eased to be thankful that 1 was 

broughl up in a State that furnishes to all its children a free education. It was a 
fine thought ol our rulers that placed > h schoolhouse a flagstaff where 

the national colors can be displayed on all publi asions. Surely it is especially 

fitting that even tin- youngest i hild should learn ins first lessons ... patriotism and 
duty beneath the folds of that flag which -1,,,..^ for so much to all of us. Some- 
tim, , me that only those who have stood in imminent peril under our 

b.,, feel that intense thrill which the sight of ""id Glory" brings to all true 

i,,,, ,1,;,, ; know was shared bj President Lincoln, who was always 



9 

in close touch with the soldiers who stood by the flag. Two days after the battle of 
Bull Run he came to Camp Sprague to talk with us, and he asked that the flag 
should be brought to him that he might see the holes which the bullets of the enemy 
had made in its folds. It was my good fortune to meet Mr. Lincoln a number of 
times, and, like every one else who came in ctfhtact with him, I was deeply im- 
pressed. His tall, gaunt figure, awkward gait, and homely manners contrasted 
strangely with the more polished appearance of the members of his cabinet, one of 
whom generally accompanied him, but in his patient, deep-set eyes could be read 
that innate kindness of heart which endeared him to all who met him. Surely in his 
Gettysburg speech the words "with malice towards none" came direct from his 
heart. He bore, as if his own, all the sorrows of a struggling, suffering people, and 
when at the last he was torn from them in the hour of their victory and triumph, 
there was no thought of hatred or revenge in his heart, but only the ardent wish to 
bind up the wounds of the war, and the patriotic desire to cement anew the broken 
fragments of our country into a united nation. There is no nobler figure in our 
country's history, nor one more worthy the emulation of our children. 

General Charles H. Merriman. 

To the children in the public schools and to the veterans of the Civil War, 
whom they delight to honor, Flag Day is looked forward to with great interest and 
pleasure. 

It is gratifying to see the spirit with which the children enter into this celebra- 
tion. To the veteran, Flag Day brings memories of the great conflict between the 
blue and the gray, in which men fought as only men fight who believe in the justice 
of their cause. 

The courage and endurance of the American soldier was equally shown on many 
a battlefield. 

The battle flags of the Rhode Island regiments in the war are now placed in our 
capitol, where they will for all time be carefully guarded. 

l> Tattered and torn those bullet-holes tell 
How bravely they fought, how nobly they fell." 

On the twelfth of February, nineteen hundred and nine, the one hundredth 
birthday of Abraham Lincoln will be commemorated in the State of Rhode Island 
and in many other states of the Union. 

It is appropriate that the day fixed upon as Flag Day should be the birthday of 
Lincoln. 

On that day let President Lincoln's speech at Gettysburg be read in all out- 
public schools. Let the children listen to the words of the man born in a cabin in 
the western wilds, who, without the advantages of an early education, rose to the 
highest position in the gift of the American people. 

Let the children be encouraged to study the life of the greatest American Presi- 
dent save Washington. Abraham Lincoln saved the Union from dismemberment, 



10 

abolished slavery, and liberated from bondage four millions of slaves. As Presi- 
dent he safely carried the country through the Civil War, which ensued immediately 
upon his inauguration, and, supported by the brave and gallant soldiers of the 
Union, he overcame its enemies and restored the old Flag to its rightful place in all 
sec tions of the country. 

We are a reunited people. The North, the South, the East, the West, all share 
with each other in the great prosperity which our country enjoys. 

President Lincoln was nut permitted to see the result of his labors. That kindly 
heart which beat for all mankind suddenly became hushed in death. Joy at the 
successful termination of the Civil War was changed to mourning, ami the nation 
was bowed in deepest grief. 

My impression of Lincoln never changed after first meeting with him. One 
seemed to feel at ease the moment he grasped his hand. While he spoke freely, 
it was impossible to penetrate his thoughts. He did not draw His inspirations from 
those around him, but from the Source of All Power. He was a " column of his own 
height," and towered above all his fellows. 

" As some tall cliff that lifts its awful form, 

Swells from the vale, and midway leaves the storm, 
Though 'round its breast the rolling clouds are spread, 
Eternal sunshine settles on its head." 

Colonel Samuel A. Pearce, President Republican Pioneer Club* 

Flag I>av, February 12th, 1909, we celebrate the centenary of the birth of the 
immortal Lincoln, the emancipator and savior of this nation, tin- ideal patriot, the 
true type of an American citizen. During the dark days of the rebellion he was 
commander-in-chief of an army of 2,778,304 volunteers. Recent study of the war 
1 e< ords show that j. 1 59,798 of that army were patriotic young men under the agi 
twenty-0 who answered bis call for defenders of our flag, to preserve it 

intact and our Union undivided. January 1st. [863, he signed that immortal do 
ment that made over three million slaves free ami this Republic in reality " the land 
of the free." November tg, [863, forty-five years ago, he made that remarkable 
address at Gettysburg which lias be< ome one of the greatest of classi< - < >ur nation 
then entered upon its "new birth of freedom," and our Republic has steadilypro- 

. until we have become the leading nation among the nations of the world, 

the greatest and most humanity-losing people on the face of the earth. The future 

i country lies in the patriotism of our youth. Let them be taught 

true patriotism and understand what the American Bag means and stands for: a 

1 ami righteous government ; honesty in public affairs; the frowning down ol 

rything that will tend to di dishonor that grand old flag whose starry 

folds aie our nation's standard, and whi. h COSt so many pie. iouS lives to preserve; 

the understanding that character, noble aspirations, and good principles go to make 

Up good Ameri. an eiti/.ens, feeling proud to bear the name of Amen, .m. A nation 



foi I in. oln 1.. 1 Presidt nt. 






11 

whose rulers are God-fearing, patriotic, loving country better than life, and willing 
to sacrifice their lives for it if need be, will "never perish from the earth," and that 
army of young men who gave their lives in 1861-65 that we might enjoy the bless- 
ings of living under a flag whose bright stars and stripes proclaim a land of free- 
men will not have sacrificed their lives in vain. 

" With malice toward none, with charity for all, let us go forward with our work 
as God gives us to see the right." "That a government of the people, by the peo- 
ple, for the people shall not perish from the earth." 

JVilliam O. Milne, Department Commander, G. A. R. 

The anniversary of Lincoln's birth, February twelve, has for years, to the Civil 
War veteran, been a day of especial interest. 

Since the General Assembly of our State settled upon it as Grand Army Flag Day, 
I have often wished that the programs prepared for the schools, for Lincoln's Birth- 
day, might contain a picture of him that would satisfy the veterans who had met 
this grand leader of the nation from 1S61 to 1865, as thousands did. Few of them 
ever forgot the genial, neighborly handshake he had for all who came in response 
to his call for troops. Surrounded as he was by treason and secession and spies 
watching and listening at every corner, he appreciated the prompt response of the 
loyal north. The troops that arrived early in Washington had a better opportunity 
to see him face to face than those troops that arrived later and were more widely 
scattered. 

The First R. I. Regiment and Battery, that occupied Camp Sprague in 1S61, were 
privileged with many visits from Mr. Lincoln, who came for many weeks and wit- 
nessed the dress parade on Sunday evenings, always joining with them in singing 
the doxology, accompanied by Greene's Band; after this he shook hands with all 
who came within his reach. His eyes were very expressive when speaking; that, 
and his smile, fails to appear in his pictures. 

Paul M. Barber. 

A face you could not forget, a look of assurance that made you at home in his 
presence, a hand grasp that mingled strength and gentleness, and reminded a boy 
soldier of father and mother and home, and sent him into the conflict with hope and 
courage: these, and an indefinable influence that emanates from such immortals, 
always flash upon me at the mention or thought of his name.* 

Rev. John Hale Larry, D. D., Pastor Edgewood Congregational Church. 



* In sending his tribute to Lincoln, Mr. Larry writes as follows : " You will not wonder at my interest in the 
coming Lincoln Birthday celebration when I tell you that I enjoyed the hand grasp of our 'Great Commoner ' 
when I was a lad just getting out of my teens ; was acting adjutant of the fort named for him, saw him at the 
White House an hour before he was shot, and had charge of the squad that drove Payne into the arms of a de- 
tective at the house of Mrs. Surratt." 



L2 

The inspiration of high citizenship must ever emanate from the life of Abraham 
Lincoln. He has been called " The First American," and it is fitting that his noble, 
unselfish career, which earned for him that title, should be impressed upon the 
minds of the young. 

Each year reveals with distinctive clearness his wonderful strength of character, 
combined with a rare beauty of spirit. 

Ills closing words on March 4, [865, in his second inaugural address — "with mal- 
ice towards none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right, as God gives us to 
see the right" — could well form the important part of the creed of the American 
Commonwealths. 

Mrs. Richard Jackson Barker, Ex- 1 'ice-President General National Society 
Daughters of the American Revolution. Recording Secretary of the 
National Society Daughters of the American Revolution Committee on 
Patriotic Education. 

" It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us." 
Thus spoke the savior of his country in the day of battle. To us, too, parents ami 
children, the message comes with equal authority. For the same great task is still 
before- us, while the battle is with ourselves, with our fretful impatience of restraint; 
with the weakening of discipline in the home, the church, ami the school; with tin- 
translating of liberty into license. For liberty does not abolish restraint; true 
liberty simply translates restraint from without into obligation from within. To be 

free one must have learned to govern himself, The indispensable basis of tree pop- 
ular government is self-government in the individual. Sure and swift is tin- down- 
fall of the free state when intelligence and self-control fail among the people. 

<)h, let the spirit of the Gettysburg message take deep hold upon us all — "That 
the government of the people, by the people, for the people, may not perish from 
ah." 

Howard Edwards, President Rhode Island ( olleg 

'I be story of Lincoln's life should have a place in every school year. We cannot 

afford to mi-s from a single year the inspiration <>| hi-- rugged Strength and of his 

ug integrity. 

fohn 1. Alger, Principal of the Rhode Island Normal School. 

In t in one hundred years since tin- twelfth ^^\ oi February, 1-0.,. 1 here is perhaps 
no nil. 1 example ol a simple and noble life than that of Abraham Lincoln. The 
bumble beginnings, his growth, his struggles, hi- rise and hi- at hi< :ve 
in. m is alwa) interesting and instructive, and shows not only the great possibili. 

Aim 11. 111 lite, but also what wonders industry, peiseveram .-. and faithful 

• ion to work and duty can perform. Here was A poor lad from the backwoods, 



13 

who became successively a boatman, a woodchopper, a laborer, a clerk, a captain of 
volunteers, a surveyor, a lawyer, a legislator, an orator, a statesman, and president 
of the republic. It was not alone his ability to overcome obstacles, but his lofty 
character, honesty, and high moral principles, that gave Abraham Lincoln a place in 
history. During all the exciting and cruel experiences of the civil war there was no 
bigger and kinder soul than his in all the land. He loved his country and all the 
people in it, and made their good and welfare his chief concern. Such a man is well 
honored by the nation on the anniversary of his birth, and his memory deserves to 
be perpetuated. His life is an inspiration to the boys and girls of our public schools 
to cultivate his virtues, his manliness of spirit, his patriotism, and his devotion to 
country. 

Frederick Rueckert, President of the School Committee of Providence. 

The best history is found in biography ; the best heroes are found in biography ; 
the best inspiration is found in biography ; and no biography can furnish so much 
history, such a hero, and so great an inspiration as the life of Lincoln. A plain man 
from the plain people, self-educated, he had a simplicity, a faith, a power which en- 
abled him to stand in the greatest breach in our country's history, and to save it 
from disruption. 

Walter H. Small, Superintendent of Schools of Providence. 

Lincoln is not great because by sheer force of intellect he got something from his 
fellows, possessed something called wealth, or enjoyed something as a gift of his 
countrymen; but he is great because he did that which those who are truly great 
have always done. The Man of Nazareth came to minister, and ever since His 
coming the idea of service has gradually become the standard by which we meas- 
ure greatness. By this standard we may measure Lincoln, and by it he takes his 
place among the greatest. 

In our short history as a nation — but little more than a century — we have already 
had two names which not only command the reverence of our own country but of 
the world. Washington and Lincoln are world names, and therefore with greater 
satisfaction do we this month celebrate their birthdays. Luckily, too, the careers 
of these two men meet the requirements of greatness in another respect. If the 
really great are those who impress deeply the succeeding generations, then every 
recurring February gives proof of the value of these two patriots who lived " skill- 
fully, justly, and magnanimously." 

Herbert IV. Lull, Superintendent of Schools of Newport. 

Grover Cleveland is reported to have said, " I would rather have my boy design 
and build a Brooklyn Bridge than see him made President of these United States." 
This great American could only have meant that he valued the possession of cour- 
age, energy, the ability to bring great things to pass, far above the mere attainment 



14 

of the highest social and civic honors. I lis words convey a much needed admoni- 
tion to this materialistic age and this intensely practical nation. 

It is precisely because the things of the spirit, heroism, patriotism, whole-souled 
devotion to the truest welfare of his country and to the elevation of his country- 
men's ideals, dominated the character and life of Abraham Lincoln that we should 
celebrate the anniversary of his birth with reverence and thanksgiving. 

Frank O. Draper, Superintendent of Schools of Paw tucket. 

America is sometimes called the land of opportunity. It is also the land of glori- 
ous deeds, of great men, and noble souls. The story of the rise of this republic, the 
noble sacrifices of its founders, the brilliant achievements of its men of affairs, the 
dignity and character of its leaders in literature, in education, and philanthropy, fill 
us with just pride and admiration, and we wonder if any other nation in the world 
can equal this record for the same period of time. 

Among these illustrious names will forever be inscribed the name of Abraham 
Lincoln. The twelfth of February should ever be honored by the people of the 
United States, and especially by the youth of our land, for it was the birthday of 
an able, honest leader of his people at the darkest hour of their history, — a leader 
and a man honored among the nations and, as the years go by, held in ever increas- 
ing reverence by his countrymen. Let our boys and girls study his life and emulate 
his virtues, "for he left us as choice a legacy in his Christian example, in his incor- 
ruptible integrity, and in his unaffected simplicity, if we will appropriate it, as in his 
public deeds." 

" It is the great boon of such characters as Mr. Lincoln's that they reunite what 
God has joined together and man has put asunder. In him was vindicated the 
greatness of real goodness and the goodness of real greatness." — BISHOP 1'millips 
Br< ">ks. 

Frank 1'.. AfcFee, Superintendent of Schools of Woonsocket. 

The American youth of to-day have in the lives of eminenl scholars, poets, and 
men many noble examples of excellence, of beauty, and of power, but no other 
name < an ies with it the inspiration t<> true, honest, noble, self sacrificing manhood 
as does tlie name- of Abraham Lincoln, 

It is well that we cr 1,1 M ,u> the centenary of notable events in our country's history, 
but tin -re has never been and may never 1"- an occasion to do homage to the memory 

of so great an A ican i itizen as is our privilege to day. 

fohn G. < r /mer, Superintendent of St hoots of I oventry. 

It is said that Abraham Lincoln i arried the Borrows of a nation in Ins heart. Still 

ira< ter w ei e courage, hope, and faith. 
ntine A/my, Superintendent i 'ranston. 






15 

Lincoln was a prophet — he foretold; he was a seer — he foresaw. He foresaw 
clearly only a year at a time — one step enough for him, the first martyred presi- 
dent — one step enough for all our martyred presidents. Lincoln foresaw free- 
dom for all children ever to be born in the American Union. He foresaw, not 
simply a free birth to the dark children of the Union of '65, but a free cradle 
for the Cubans and fine arts for the Filipinos in the Greater American Union 
that is ours. His long arms clasped for the bosom of the globe, his large heart 
longed to heal the brokenhearted of the world. Lincoln gloried in birthdays. He 
foresaw for every new year a new birth of freedom, a new Union deserving our in- 
creased devotion. Then let us to-day, the free children of beloved Rhode Island, 
stand close together in union and in unison, under the folds of the Greater Union 
flag, and let us wave the words of our song — a song of patriotic praise for his birth 
in the dark days and for our birth in the bright days of the Greater American 
Union, which he saw through a glass darkly, but we see face to face. 

Charles C. Richardson, Supermtendent of Schools of Cumberland. 

To-day, we look upon a man, plain, homely, in everyday clothes, standing among 
his own people — our countryman. We have joy in contemplating him, for that 
common man lived his life so grandly that he made America more pleasant for you 
and me. Greatness was in his clear mind, his generous nature, and his brave, quiet 
ways. 

As a boy he chose to go aboard the ship of truth. When the ship seemed to go 
down, he did not jump overboard and swim to land. He went down with the ship. 
He would never leave it. And he was not drowned, because the ship of truth can- 
not sink. It must always come up again above the waves. And noble men may live 
upon it alway, if only they be brave and firm, generous and humble. 

When in time of war and trouble the country needed a gentle captain of good 

courage and wise counsel, the people thought of Abraham Lincoln, of heart so 

sympathetic, of character so beautiful, of judgment so fair, of loyalty to truth so 

devoted. That he might be their leader, the people made him President of the 

United States. 

J. W. Dows, Saperinteiident of Schools of East Providence. 

We honor Lincoln for the strength and nobility of his character. In early life he 
encountered difficulties and hardships of the most discouraging nature, yet he 
courageously met and overcame them by patient perseverance in well-doing. 

Lincoln was a dutiful son. His stepmother said of him, "He never gave me a 
cross word or look, and never refused, in fact or in appearance, to do anything I 
•requested of him." 

Lincoln was a diligent student, and with very limited advantages "could never 
be satisfied on any question till he understood it thoroughly, nor could he give up a 
difficult problem till he had mastered it." 

Lincoln was honest in word and in deed. When urged to support a measure which 



16 

he believed to be wrong, he replied — " You may burn my body to ashes and scatter 
them to the winds of heaven; you may drag down my soul to the regions of dark- 
ness and despair to be tormented forever; but you will never get me to support a 
measure which I believe to be wrong, although by doing so I may accomplish that 
which I believe to be right." 

As a true patriot Lincoln devoted the energies of his noble nature unselfishly and 
impartially to the advancement of the best interests of his fellow countrymen. 

May our children and youth emulate these traits in the character of Lincoln, and 
learn that the highest possibilities for progress in the world are open to all, how- 
ever humble their origin. 

i William II. Starr, Superintendent of Schools of Johnston. 

Lincoln undoubtedly was in the truest sense the greatest American statesman of 
his day. The unwearying patience, the tireless energy and devotion to duty shown 
from his earliest youth, and the concentration of mind, doubtless largely due to his 
early training, combined with a heart and soul tormented by the wrongs of slavery 
and a firm conviction that the nation could not exist half slave and half free, made 
him the man for the hour. 

Let our boys and girls who study Lincoln's work learn the truth which the great 
Emancipator clearly saw and freely declared, that a great evil cannot exist in a part 
of our country without sapping its life and blighting the whole. 

Emerson L. Adams, Superintendent of Schools of Lincoln. 

The life of Abraham Lincoln, the most interesting figure in our national history, 
stands forth as an inspiring example to American youth. It teaches that the right 
sort of ambition and a determined purpose will overcome whatever handicap is in- 
volved in lowly birth and dearth of early opportunity; that courage and fidelity to 

duty, however humble, together with a keen sense ol honor, are essential to great 

achievement; and that the possession of humor and tenderness of heart helps 
rather than hinders him who has to hear hca\\ luirdens. 

Elwood /'. Wvmaii, Superintendent of Schools of Warwick. 

" Abe Line oln never did a mean thin- in his life." This homely tribute was paid 

th< ident by a man who as a hoy was Lincoln's playfellow. Lincoln never 

did a mean thing; but, what is far nobler, he always tried to do the right thing- 

With him the greatesl thing in life was to do the right thing. 

William II. Holmes, Jr., Superintendent of Schools of Westerly. 

Who would have supposed that the awkward youth, Abraham Lincoln, poor and 

• rant, with none <>i the culture oi the bcI 1- and none "i the advantages of 

d position, would be< ome the se< ond great i haracter "i a great nation. . apable 
commanding its army and navy in one ol the greatest of wars, wresting victory 

i dom i" millions ol human beings by the stroke ol 



17 

his pen, and uttering one of the world's classics at Gettysburg? His humble youth 
and mature greatness were typical of the nation which he served, and for which he 
died a martyr's death. 

The number of those who remember the days when Lincoln was President is 
diminishing year by year. None of the youth of to-day can realize the oppressive 
sadness which filled the hearts of those who heard the news of Lincoln's assassina- 
tion on that memorable fourteenth of April, 1865. Even the leaders of the Con- 
federacy expressed their indignation, and the whole South soon realized that it had 
lost its best friend. 

Teachers can find few better examples to set before their pupils than that of the 
man who so patiently bore the wrongs of a race and the sorrows of a nation on his 
heart, who was so great in his simplicity, who was so sincere and so strong in his 
moral earnestness that even in their nickname men paid tribute to his honesty. 

David W. Hoyt, Principal of English High School of Providence. 

Abraham Lincoln is now regarded by historical students everywhere as one of the 
world's great men. 

His Gettysburg speech has been cast in bronze and now hangs on the wall in 
Oxford College, England, as an example to all students of how much can be said, in 
English, by a few well-chosen words. 

It is a matter of record, however, that Lincoln shrank from delivering that 
address, as one incapable of meeting the needs of that great occasion. 

Ever modest in his estimate of himself and his own powers, he met every emer- 
gency with a sagacity and courage that have since become the marvel of mankind. 

So unconscious of his own greatness was Lincoln that, had he been asked to give 
a list of the great men of his time, his own name would never have occurred to him. 
He would have said, Edwin M. Stanton, my secretary of war, is a great man, and 
Ulysses S. Grant, the general of the army, is a great man; but I am just a plain, 
honest citizen, trying to do my duty as God gives me light. 

So, then, if we analyze the character of Lincoln and seek to set down the traits 
that make his name worthy to be placed in the Hall of Fame, we will note his great 
modesty, always in honor preferring others to himself; his unassuming manner, 
never seeking to be conspicuous on account of his high office; his rare good judg- 
ment; his unbounded sympathy for all mankind; his absolute honesty and purity 
of heart; his power to make the most of himself and his opportunities, and an 
unwavering faith in God. 

George F. Weston, Principal of Technical High School of Providence. 

In my opinion no hour in the course of the school year is more profitably spent 
than that which celebrates the anniversary of the birthday of Abraham Lincoln. 
As a statesman, as a patriot, and as a man he possessed the material of which heroes 



18 

arc made, and it is precisely in this beneficent kind of hero worship that the modern 
American training of youth is weak. 

Charles E. Dennis, fr.. Principal of Hope Street High School of Providence. 

The celebration of Lincoln's birthday secures two results: first, it teaches us the 
meaning of patriotism and self-sacrifice, not as abstract propositions, but as exem- 
plified by a noble man in a great crisis; second, it keeps alive and enables us to give 
expression to our sense of gratitude to the veterans of the war of the Rebellion. 
Such a holiday deserves to be a holy day. Let us make it such! 

Elmer S. Hosmer, Principal of Pawtuckct High School. 

1 know of no other life in the annals of American history so completely capable of 
inspiring our boys and young men with the desire to make the best use of their 
talents as that of Abraham Lincoln. Simplicity of manner, steadfastness in pur- 
pose, utter disregard of superficiality or selfish desire, are characteristics within the 
comprehension and reach of even the most humble, but which went to make up the 
greatness of this noble life, 

It a young man is misled into thinking that birth, social position, wealth, family 
influence, or even a college education is necessary for success, let him read the life 
of Abraham Lincoln and learn that, in America, perseverance combined with purity 
and singleness <>f purpose, qualities within his grasp, made Lincoln president of 
the United States, the preserver of our Union, and, above all, that noblest work of 
Cod. an HoNBST Man, to whom the whole world pays its homage on this the one 
hundredth anniversary of his birth. 

Amasa .1. Holden, Principal of Woonsocket High School. 

As tin- \eais pass, and the period <>f the Civil War becomes ancient history, the 
figure of our Martyr President will tend to assume more and more the character of 
a hero of a mythical age. Like tin- father of his Country, he may come to be re- 
garded as a superior being without any of the faults and weaknesses of common 

humanity, as one who attained his high place and fame by the- possession and em- 
ployment "I Superhuman intellectual and moral powers. Without detracting from 

tin- genius for statemanship and the wonderful capacity for growth, which were his 
to th>- end of Ins life, we need to remind ourselves that Lincoln prepared himself for 
■ i k and performed Ins invaluable service to the nation by the exercise of those 
|j virtues and qualities that make- men truly greal and useful in even the hum- 
bles! walks of lite. One distinguishing characteristic was the thoroughness with 
which he performed every task, the conscientious, persevering spirit which he 
brought to every duty A brief illustration ot this is suffii ient Ihs opportunities 
ere most meagre, hut a hunger tor knowledge was his ruling passion 
While he was learning t" read, and to acquire the art of written and spoken dis- 

he had discovered that human language had its laws, and that no man could 



19 

be called educated if ignorant of them. He was advised to get a grammer and study 
it. With some difficulty he obtained one, and without assistance applied himself to 
his new task. Utilizing every spare moment during the day, poring upon his book 
at night by the light of a wood fire, he succeeded, after months of patient study, in 
mastering the difficulties of English grammar. It is this quality of thoroughness, 
this spirit of steady application, that the American youth of to-day most needs to 
imitate. Our young people do well on this Lincoln Centennial to offer their tribute 
of praise to the memory of this much tried servant of his country; they will do better 
when they exemplify in their own lives those sterling virtues, those qualities of 
mind and heart which did him honor, and by which they can best serve their day 
and generation. 

William Overton, Principal of Central Falls High School. 

Trained in the hard school of necessity, Lincoln developed under measureless re- 
sponsibilities broad human sympathy in its highest sense and the divine virtue of 
unselfishness. These qualities, added to his wise judgment, made him such as he 
was— an instrument of God, brought forth to work out successfully the unification 
of the American people. 

Charles A. Marsh, Principal of Bristol High School. 

The best way in which we can carry on the work of Lincoln is to fight here and 
now in favor of Lincoln's ideal of government of the people, by the people— not the 
bosses— for the people— not the favored interests. 

Louis L. Whitney, Principal of Cumberland High School. 

In whatever light we may choose to consider Abraham Lincoln, we can hardly 
escape being impressed with what seems to underlie his whole work. It is his per- 
sonality—strong, peculiar, dominating. Placed in a position where there was no 
precedent to guide him, surrounded by mediocre advisers, and in the very midst of 
treason itself, his laughter-wrinkled brow justly deserves the crown posterity so 
willingly places upon it. 

Let Italy worship her Garibaldi, let France proudly shout the name of Napoleon, 
let Germany present her Bismarck, and let England point with pride to her Glad- 
stone, while all true Americans, with one accord, sing the praise of that paragon of 
virtue who piloted our Ship of State from the whirlpool of slavery, around the bleak 
promontory of State's rights, and safely into the harbor of Unity. 

Earl S. Lewis, Principal of Hope Valley High School of Hopkinton. 

As each Grand Army Flag Day comes to you, it brings new lessons of love, loyalty, 
and patriotism for your country. This Flag Day of nineteen hundred and nine 
should be especially observed in honor of him who so nobly and fearlessly acted in 
accord with the inspiration of his soul, and at so great a sacrifice united the North 
and South of our beautiful land, because it is the one hundredth anniversary of his 



20 

birth. The day is best lived if it imbues in our youth the characteristics that so 
clearly shone from his life; and if you, like Lincoln, are true to your convictions and 
the leadership of your Heavenly Father, you will give your energies and influence 
to the advancement of the glorious country of which you are a part, and which you 
honor by the emblem of the red, white, and blue. 

Albert B. Crandall, Principal of As haw ay High School of Hopkinton. 

Lincoln's Interest in Youth. 

Lincoln's interest in young people was shown in his visit to Providence in i860. 
He made an address in behalf of the Republicans in the evening of February 28, 
i860, at Railroad Hall, a part of the old station recently demolished. Campaign 
songs were sung by the "Du Dah Club," led by Col. William P. Blodgett and com- 
posed quite largely of students of Brown University. Lincoln was greatly interested 
in the singing and asked to meet the club after the meeting was over. He received 
us very cordially, and as he was to speak at Woonsocket on the evening of March 
8th, he wanted us to go there to sing. Of course we agreed, and a car for us was at- 
tached to the special train. Before we reached Pawtucket, Lincoln came into our 
car and during the entire trip talked to us, and we sang to him. The committee in 
charge tried to get him into the other car, but he said, " Look here! I can see plenty 
of politicians every day, but I don't often get the chance to talk with college boys." 
So he stayed with us, to our great delight. 

folui H. Stiness, Ex-Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. 

Visions of Lincoln. 



Some one spoke ihe name of Lincoln, 
And before me straightway rOSI 

An ungainly, awkward woodsman. 
Clad in common working clothes 

• .nc spoke the name of l.im oln, 
And behold ! ■ pageant fair 
Stream lately city. 

And a President was there. 

Ice ' I" name of I tinooln, 

And before my vision rolled 

! blood .mil awful 1 
1 hai 00 11 iatoi . '■ pagi are told 



Some one spoke the name ol I il 

And 1 saw a music hall, 
Deck< 'I with Hags and dense will 

And a m.m the marked ol .ill 

Some one spoke the name • 1 1 Lincoln, 
Hark ! was that a pistol shot ? 

Did I see upon the • ai pi 1 
St.iins ol blood, 01 but a blot } 

Some one >-p"ki iit. 

Tolling '"'lis ranf in my 1 ai . 
Ami I saw .1 mourning nation, 

Following ■ hlai k -p. iiii il bier. 



■ name "i 1 in< oln, 
Kifinl were the 1 rystal skir*, 
A11.I I v.iu .1 . 1 1. wind Immortal 
I n i hr pi. 11 . . ailed Paradise 

— .s'nii, .)/. Bttt, 



21 



II. 

TRIBUTES TO LINCOLN. 

WHAT PRESIDENTS HAVE SAID OF LINCOLN. 

" The grief of the nation is still fresh. It finds some solace in the consideration 
that he lived to enjoy the highest proof of its confidence by entering on the renewed 
term of the Chief Magistracy to which he has been elected. "—Johnson. 

" A man of great ability, pure patriotism, unselfish nature, full of forgiveness to 
his enemies, bearing malice toward none, he proved to be the man above all others 
for the great struggle through which the nation had to pass to place itself among 
the greatest in the family of nations. His fame will grow brighter as time passes 
and his great work is better understood." — U. S. Grant. 

"To him, more than to any other man, the cause of the Union and liberty is 
indebted for its final triumph." — Hayes. 

" He was one of the few great rulers whose wisdom increased with his power, and 
whose spirit grew gentler and tenderer as his triumphs were multiplied," — Gar- 
field. 

"A supremely great and good man." — Cleveland, 

" In the broad common-sense way in which he did small things, he was larger 
than any situation in which life had placed him." — Harrison. 

"The story of this simple life is the story of a plain, honest, manly citizen, true 
patriot, and profound statesman, who, believing with all the strength of his mighty 
soul in the institutions of his country, won because of them the highest place in 
its government — then fell a precious sacrifice to the Union he held so dear, which 
Providence had spared his life long enough to save." — McKmley. 

"Nothing was more noteworthy in all of Lincoln's character than the way in 
which he combined fealty to the loftiest ideal with a thoroughly practical capacity 
to achieve that ideal by practical methods. He did not war with phantoms; he did 
not struggle among the clouds; he faced facts; he endeavored to get the best results 
he could out of the warring forces with which he had to deal." — Roosevelt. 

" Certain it is that we have never had a man in public life whose sense of duty 
was stronger, whose bearing toward those with whom he came in contact, whether 
his friends or political opponents, was characterized by a greater sense of fairness 
than Abraham Lincoln." — President-Elect Taft. 



22 

The Cenotaph. 

(On the final burial of Lincoln at Springfield, April 
14. 1887.) 

And so they buried Lincoln ? Strange and vain ! 
Has any creature thought of Lincoln hid 
In any vault, 'neath any coffin-lid, 
In all the years since that wild spring of pain ? 
'Tis false, — he never in the grave hath lain. 
You could not bury him although you slid 
Upon his clay the Cheops pyramid 
Or heaped it with the Rocky Mountain chain. 
They slew themselves; they but set Lincoln free. 
In all the earth his great heart beats as strong. 
Shall beat while pulses throb to chivalry 
And burn with hate of tyranny and wrong. 
Whoever will may find him. anywhere 
Save in the tomb. Not there, — he is not there ! 

— yanit-s Thompson McKay. 

"The grave that receives the remains of Lincoln receives a costly sacrifice to the 
Union; the monument which will rise over his body will bear witness to the Union: 
his endearing memory will assist during countless ages to bind the States together 
and to incite to the love of our one undivided, indivisible country." — George Ban- 
croft. 

" Mothers shall teach his name to their lisping children. The youth of our land 
shall emulate his virtues. Statesmen shall study his record and learn lessons of 
wisdom. Mute though his lips be, yet they still speak. Hushed is his voice, but 
its echoes of liberty are ringing through the world, and the sons of bondage listen 
with joy.'* — Matthew Simpson. 

" His name will ever be in the hearts of the American people, as green, as fresh, 
and as pleasant as is to the eyes the tender grass springing out of the earth by clear 
shining after rain." — Gen. Morgan Dix. 

" Hi- did not seek to say merely tin- tiling that was for the day's debate, but the 
thing which would stand the test of time and square itself with eternal justice." 
— James G. Blaine. 

"He Bpoke to all mankind words "i patriotism, admonition, and pathos, which 
will continue '<> sound through tin- ages as longas tin- (lowers shall bloom or the 
w.iins Mow." — Alexander If. Rice, 

"No man could have endured bo much without some recreation, ami humor was 
t>. him what a safety valve Is i" an engine." — Hannibal Hamlin. 

"The unwavering faith in a Divine Providence began at his mother's knee, and 
ran like a thread "t gold through all th-- mmr experiem ee >>t ins life."—/. G. Hoi- 
land. 



23 



So always firmly he : 
He knew to bide his time. 

And can his fame abide, 
Still patient in his simple faith sublime. 

Till the wise years decide. 
Great captains, with their guns and drums. 

Disturb our judgment for the hour, 
But at last silence comes ; 

These all are gone, and, standing like a tower, 
Our children shall behold his fame, 

The kindly-earnest, brave, foreseeing man, 
Sagacious, patient, dreading praise, not biame, 

New birth of our new soil, the first American. 

— Lowell. 



" Studying his grammar by firelight of a log cabin when a boy, he addressed the 
senate and people from the capital of a great nation." — fames Freeman Clark. 

" He surpassed all orators in eloquence, all diplomatists in wisdom, all statesmen 
in foresight, and the most ambitious in fame." — [ohn J. In gal Is. 

" A poor, plain, simple, honest, laborious American life, with learning drained 
chiefly from nature, made him healthy, strong, self-reliant, calm, true, honest, 
brave, diligent, and developed all the true manlier qualities." — Chas. M. Ellis. 

" He had the heart of the child and the intellect of a philosopher. A patriot 
without guile, a politician without cunning or selfishness, a statesman of practical 
sense rather than fine-spun theory." — Andrew Sherman. 

" President Lincoln's Gettysburg Address was the high water mark of American 
oratory." — Thomas Wentivorth Hlgginsoji. 



The form is vanished and the footsteps still. 

But from the silence Lincoln's answer thrills ; 

" Peace, charity, and love ! " in all the world's best 

needs 
The master stands transfigured in his deeds. 

—Kate M. B. Sherwood. 

His towering figure, sharp and spare. 
Was with such nervous tension strung 
As if on each strained sinew swung 

The burden of a people's care. 

His country saved, his work achieved. 
He boasted not of what he d done. 

But rather in his goodness grieved 
For all sad hearts beneath the sun. 

— G, Martin. 



All the kindly grace, 
The tender love, the loyalty to truth, 
That flowed and mingle in the gentlest blood, 
Were met together in his blameless life. 

— Mary A. Ripley. 

From humble parentage and poverty, old Nature 
reared him, 
And the world beheld her ablest, noblest man; 
Few were his joys, many and terrible his trials, 
But grandly he met them as only truly great souls 
can ! 
Our nation's martyr — pure, honest, patient, tender — 

Thou who didst suffer agony e'en for the slave, 
Our flag's defender, our brave immortal teacher ! 
I lay this humble tribute on thy honored grave. 
— Paul De Vere. 



•24 



O Captain! My Captain! 

O Captain: my Captain! our fearful trip is done; I I Captain ! my Captain ! rise up and hear the beUs; 

The ship has weathered every rack, the prize we Rise up-for you the flag tsflung-for you the bugle 



trills: 



, • trins; 

TheT^ is'nelV'the bells 1 hear, the people all ex- For you bouquets and ribboned wreaths-for you the 

. . shores a-crowding, 

While' "Sow eyes the steady keel, the vessel grim For you they call, the swaying mass, their eager faces 
.'. turning; 

and daring. „ ■ , j c .1 1 

But, heart ! heart ! heart ! Here, Captain ! dear father ! 

,e bleeding drops of red, This arm beneath your head ! 

Where on the deck my captain lies, I « * *«ie dream that on the .leek 

, ,, ,. , j j You've fallen cold and eh .ul. 

I and dead. 

M v Captain does not answer, his lips are pale and still, 
My lather does not feel my arm, he has no pulse nor 

will; 
The ship is anchored safe and sound, its voyage closed 

and 1 1 
From fearful trip the victor ship conies in with ob- 
ject won. 

Exult, shores, and ring, O bells! 
Bui 1 with mournful tread 
Walk the deck— my Captain lies 
Fallen cold and dead. 

— Walt Whitman. 

Abraham Lincoln. 
On the day of his death, this simple Western attorney, who, according to one 
party, was a vulgar joker, and whom the doctrinaires among his own supporters 
accused of wanting every element of statesmanship, was the most absolute ruler in 
Christendom, and this solely by the hold his good-humored sagacity had laid on the 
hearts and understandings of his countrymen. Nor was this all, for it appeared 
that he had drawn the great majority, nol only of his fellow-citizens, but of man- 
kind also, to bis side. So strong and so persuasive is honest manliness without a 
single quality of romance or unreal sentiment to help it! A civilian during times 
of themosl captivating military achievement, awkward, with no skill in the lower 
tt ni( alities of manners, he lefl behind him a fame beyond that of any conqueror, 
the memory of a grace higher than that of outward person, and ot a gentlemanli- 
deeperthan mere breeding. Never before that startled April morning did 
such multitudes oi men shed tears for the death ol one they had never seen, as it 
t h hima friendly presence had been taken away from their lives, leaving them 
colder and darker. Never was funeral panegyric so eloquent as the silenl look oi 
npath) which strangers exchanged when they met on that day. Their common 
manhood had lost a kinsman. Lowell. 

Ye». t hi* ""'" 

ighi v.iur- prophet <'t th. eldei 
1 iding above I id the lr -'V 

With deep eyed thought .<i"l more than mortal I 
\ power* ' ■'" 

1 11 armed tircngth : hi» pure and mighty heart. 
Richard II'. (■■ 



25 

To the Spirit of Abraham Lin- 
coln. 

(Reunion at Gettysburg, twenty-five yearsafter the 
battle.) 

Shade of our greatest, O look down to-day ! 

Here the long, dread mid summer battleroared. 

And brother in brother plunged the accursed sword; — 

Here foe meets foe once more in proud array 

Yet not as once to harry and to slay. 

But to strike hands, and with sublime accord 

Weep tears heroic for the souls that soared 

Quick from earth's carnage to the starry way. 

Each fought for what he deemed the people's good, 

And proved his bravery by his offered life. 

And sealed his honor with his out-poured blood. 

But the Eternal did direct the strife. 

And on this sacred field one patriot host, 

Now calls thee father — dear, majestic ghost ! 

—Gilder. 

Recantation. 

During all the four years of his presidency the "London Punch" had pursued 
Lincoln with a bitterness that did not halt short of the meanest abuse and slander. 
At his death, though, "Punch" made this manly recantation, one of the finest 
poems which the tragedy inspired. 



' You lay a wreath on murdered Lincoln's bier, 
You, who with mocking pencil wont to trace. 
Broad for the self-complacent British sneer, 

His length of shambling limb, his furrowed face, 

1 His gaunt, gnarled hands, his unkempt, bristling 
hair, 
His garb uncouth, his bearing ill at ease. 
His lack of all we prize as debonair, 

Of power or will to shine, of art to please; 

' You, whose smart pen backed up the pencil's laugh, 
Judging each step as though the way were plain; 
Reckiess, so it could point its paragraph, 
Of chief's perplexities or people's pain; 

' Beside this corse, that bears for winding-sheet 
The Stars and Stripes he lived to rear anew, 
Between the mourners at his head and feet, 
Say, scurrile jester, is there room for you? 

Yes; he had lived to shame me from my sneer, 
To lame my pencil, and confute my pen; 

To make me own this hind of princes peer, 
This rail-splitter true-born king of men. 



' My shallow judgment I had learned to rue, 
Noting how to occasion's height he rose; 
How his quaint wit made home-truth seem more 
true; 
How, iron-iike, his temper grew by blows; 

' How humble yet how hopefui he could be; 
How, in good-fortune and in ill, the same; 
Nor bitter in success, nor boastful he, 
Thirsty for gold, nor feverish for fame. 

He went about his work— such work as few 

Ever had laid on head and heart and hand- 
As one who knows, where there's a task to do, 
Man's honest will must Heaven's good grace 
command; 



' The Old World and the New, from sea to sea. 
Utter one voice of sympathy and shame; 
Sore heart, so stopped when it at last beat high; 
Sad life, cut short just as its triumph came !" 



26 



Markhnm on Lincoln. 



When the Norn Mother saw the Whirlwind Hour, 

aing ami darkening as it hurried on, 
She bent the strenuous heavens and i ante down 
To make a man to meet the mortal need. 
She took the tried clay of the common road. 
Clay warm yet with the genial heal of earth, 
Hashed through it all a strain of prophi 
Then mixed a laughter with the serious stuff; 
It was the stuff to wear for centuries, 
A man that matched the mountains and i ompelltd 
The stars to look our way and honor us. 

I the ground ».i- in him, the red earth; 



The tang and odor of the primal things; 
The rectitude and patience of the rocks; 

The gladness of the wind that shakes the corn; 

I i urage of the bird that dares the sea; 

The justice of the rain that loves all leaves; 
The pity of the snow that hides all scars; 
The loving kindness of the wayside well; 
The tolerance and equity of light 
That gives as freely to the shrinking weed 
As to the great oak flaring to the wind — 
To t he grave's low hill as to the Matter horn 
That shoulders out the sky. 



And so he came, 
From prairie cabin up to Capitol, 
< In. lair ideal led our chieftain on. 
Forevermore he burned to do his deed 
With the line stroke and gesture of a king. 
He built the rail pile, as he built the State, 
l'ouring his splendid strength through every blow, 
I he conscience of him testing every stroke, 
To make his deed the measure of a man. 

s.i . .one the captain with the might) hi 
Xiiil when the step of earthquake shook thi 
\\ i in. in in; tlu- rafters from their ancient hold, 
He held the ridgepole up, and spiked again 
The rafters of the Home. He held his place- 
Held the long purpose like a growing tree— 
II. Id .hi through blame and fall end not a I praise. 
And when In- fell in whirlwind, he went down 

\s when a kingly i edar, e,recn with boughs, 

■ iOI I down with a great shout ii poll I he hills. 



I liis in. in. w hose hon look upon. 

Was f n. lime's masterful, gri at men ; 

Born with strong arms that unfoughl victories won, 

,.l i unning « ith i in 
Chosen for large design-., he had the art 

• II winning with his humor, and lie went 

i . , w In. h was the human I" trl . 

Id not break, hi bi nt 

I i his i..i. k, a more than A i las' load, 

i i he ( ommonweall h wa 
.ii.i rose up w u h n. i hough the road 
.. ii ds, not a w hit dun i 



Strut k the limn ! 
A . rime. 

The in. sin of a people > langing forth 
Tin..' the wild South and thro' the startled North 

■ i a U a. lei , mastet •■! Ins kind, 

i ..ml linn, wit h . I< .n foreseeing mind ; 

ttlm should not Him h from calumny or scorn, 
\\ in. in the depth ol night could ken the mom ; 

\\ , . .ii.: pb" « i 

1 liniibly. with faith sublime. 
< ...ii km w I In- man 111- - 

I .... I Ion, lii d (he man. an. I I i !u si.. oil n ■ 

. /.. II. 



27 
III. 

WORDS OF LINCOLN. 

Liberty is your birthright. 

Learn the laws and obey them. 

Revolutionize through the ballot box. 

I am nothing, but truth is everything. 

I shall stay right here and do my duty. 

Killing the dog does not cure the bite. 

If I can learn God's will, I will do it. 

My rightful masters, the American people. 

The Union is older than any of the states. 

As our case is new, so we must think anew. 

Workingmen are the basis of all governments. 

Trust to the good sense of the American people. 

Mercy bears richer rewards than strict justice. 

Keep the jewel of liberty in the family of freedom. 

I am glad to find a man who can go ahead without me. 

Give us a little more light, and a little less noise. 

You must not give me the praise — it belongs to God. 

Let the people know the truth, and the country is safe. 

It is not best to swap horses while crossing a stream. 

He sticks through thick and thin— I admire such a man. 

Ballots are the rightful and peaceful successors of bullets. 

With firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right. 

You may say anything you like about me — if that will help. 

It is not much in the nature of man to be driven to do anything. 

Success does not so much depend on external help as on self-reliance. 

It is better only sometimes to be right than at all times wrong. 

I esteem foreigners as no better than other people — nor any worse. 

If our sense- of duty forbids, then let us stand, by our sense of duty. 

You must remember that some things legally right are not morally right. 

No man is good enough to govern another man without that other's consent. 

With public sentiment, nothing can fail; without it, nothing can succeed. 

The strife of elections is but human nature applied to the facts of the case. 



28 

Lab or is the superior of capital and deserves much the higher consideration. 

This country, with all its institutions, belongs to the people who inhabit it 

No human counsel has devised, nor hath any mortal hand worked out, these great 

11 When you have an elephant on hand, and he wants to run away, better let him 



run 



( - (lld is good in its place; but living, brave, and patriotic men are better than 

gold. 

' Mv experience and observation have been that those who promise the most do the 

least. , , . 
The race of an old friend is like a ray of sunshine through dark and gl n, 

Cl Tht government is expressly charged with the duty of providing for the general 

welfare 

u is a different rule, and so much the greater will be the honor ,f VOU perform ,t 

"fever mind if you are a conn,; you shall he treated with jus, as much consider* 
tion, tor all that. 

, remember my mother's prayers, and they have always followed me. 1 hey have 

clung to me all my life. 

.. , naye made i t th e rule of my life," said the old parson, -not to cross box Rtver 

until I get to it." _ 

Y haye ^ driyen many times to my knees by the overwhelming conviction that 

1 had nowhere else to go. 

, have s thing bo, what I am billing to live by, and, if it be the pleasure oi 

Almighty God, to die by. 

Whatever is calculated to improve the condition of the honest, strugghng, labor- 
[ng man, 1 am for that thing. 

! must stand with anybody that stands right ; stand with bin, while he is right, and 
part with him when heg-.es wrong. 

T , ienyf. 1 to other, deserve it not for thenuelves ; and, under , 

j u8 t God, i annot long retain it. 
Without guile, and with pure purpose, let us renew our trust in God, and go for- 

ward without fear and with manly hearts. 
Let us have faith that right makes might; and in that faith let us to the end dare 

,,, ,,,, ,„,,- duty as we understand it. 
Men are not flattered by being shown that there has been a differen, purpose 

between tin- Almighty and them. 
[fI send a man to buy a horse for me. I expect him to tell me his points not 1 ■ 

many hairs are in his tail. m 

,„..,, ho , l-» tU-Oh ble»ing. and on the Alm.ght, 

Be i ng i place u.v reliance (or support 



29 

I implore the compassion and forgiveness of the Almighty, that He may enlighten 
the nation to know and to do His will. 

I am not bound to win, but I am bound to be true. I am not bound to succeed, 
but I am bound to live up to what light I have. 

Our government rests in public opinion. Whoever can change public opinion can 
change the government practically just so much. 

It is difficult to make a man miserable while he feels he is worthy of himself and 
claims kindred to the great God who made him. 

How nobly distinguished that people who shall have planted and nurtured both the 
political and moral freedom of their species. 

Nothing stamped with the Divine image and likeness was sent into the world to 
be trodden on and degraded and imbruted by its fellows. 

Why should there not be a patient confidence in the ultimate justice of the people ? 
Is there a better or equal hope in the world ? 

It is easy to conceive that all these shades of opinion, and even more, may be sin- 
cerely entertained by honest and truthful men. 

You can fool some of the people some of the time, or all of the people some of the 
time ; but you can't fool all of the people all of the time. 

It has been said of the world's history hitherto that " might makes right"; it is 
tor us and for our times to reverse the maxim, and to show that right makes might. 

It has long been a grave question whether any government, not too strong for the 
liberties of its people, can be strong enough to maintain its existence in great emer- 
gencies. 

Any people anywhere, being inclined and having the power, have the right to rise 
•up and shake off the existing government and form a new one that suits them 
better. 

If all that has been said by orators and poets since the creation in praise of women 
■were applied to the women of America, it would not do them full justice for their 
•conduct during the war. 

No men living are more worthy to be trusted than those who toil up from poverty 
— none less inclined to take, or touch, aught which they have not honestly earned. 

Neither let us be slandered from our duty by false accusations against us, nor 
frightened by menaces of destruction to the government nor of dungeons to our- 
-selves. 

If it be true that the Lord has appointed me to do the work you have indicated, is 
it not probable that He would have communicated knowledge ( of the fact to me as 
well as to you ? 

If by the mere force of numbers a majority should deprive a minority of a con- 
stitutional right, it might in a moral point of view justify revolution — certainly 
would if such right were a vital one. 

Two principles have stood face to face from the beginning of time and will ever 
continue to struggle. The one is the common right of humanity ; the other is the 
•divine right of kings. 



30 . 

The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot 
grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell 
the chorus of the Union when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better 
angels of our nature. 

My countrymen, if you have been taught doctrines conflicting with the great 
landmarks of the Declaration of Independence ; if you have listened to suggestions 
which would take away from its grandeur and mutilate the fair symmetry of its 
proportions ; if you have been inclined to believe that all men are not created equal 
in those inalienable rights enumerated by our charter of liberty, let us entreat you 
to come back. 

Great statesmen as they (the Fathers of the Republic) were, they knew the ten- 
dency of prosperity to breed tyrants, and so they established these great self-evident 
truths, that when in the future some men, some faction, some interest, should set 
up the doctrine that none but the rich men, none but the white men, or none but 
Anglo-Saxon white men were entitled to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, 
their posterity might look up again to the Declaration of Independence and take 
courage to renew the battle which their fathers began, so that truth and justice and 
mercy and all the humane and Christian virtues might not be extinguished from 
the land ; so that no man would hereafter dare to limit and circumscribe the great 
principles on which the temple of liberty was being built. 

Lincoln's Farewell. 

Springfield, Feb. 1 1, 1861 
No niie. not in my situation, can appreciate my feeling of sadness at this parting. 
To this place, and the kindness of these people, I owe everything. Here I have 
lived a quarter of a century, and have passed from a young to an old man. Here 
my children have been born, and one is buried. I now leave, not knowing when or 
whether ever I may return, with a task before me greater than that which rested 
upon Washington. Without the assistance of that Divine Being, who ever attended 
him, I cannot succeed. With that assistance, I cannot fail. Trusting in Him who 
can go with me, and remain with you, and be every where for good, let us confidently 
hope that all will yet be well. To His care commending you, as I hope in your 
prayers you will commend me, I bid you an affectionate farewell. 

A Letter* of President Lincoln. 

Executive M insion, 

WASHINGTi >n, Nov. 21, ] B64. 
To Mks. BlXBY, Boston, Mass. 

Dear Madam: l have been shown in the tiles of the War Department a state- 

mi m <,i tin- Adjutant General "i Massachusetts tint you are the mother of live smi^ 

win. have died gloriously 00 the field ol battle 1 feel how weak and fruitless must 

ins word "i mine which should attempt to beguile you from the grief ol a loss so 
rwhelming Bui [ cannol refrain from tendering you the consolation that may 
i,<- found in the thanks <>i the republi< they died t>> Bave 1 pray that our Heavenly 
1 tthei may assuage the anguish "f youi bereavement, and leave you only the cher- 
ished memory of the loved and lost, and the solemn pride tint must he yours to 
havi laid costly a acrifice upon the altar of freedom, 

Yimii s \ ei \ Bincerely and respectfully, A Lincoln, 

framed, and bung ic ol il.r balli <<i < la ford 1 1 ogland) Univeraity, •'■> •< 

1 ngliab and the tl elegant di< tion <-v 



31 
Extract From Lincoln's First Inaugural. 

[Delivered at Washington, March 4, 1861.] 

A disruption of the Federal Union, heretofore only menaced, is now formidably 
attempted. I hold that in the contemplation of universal law and of the Constitu- 
tion, the Union of these States is perpetual. Perpetuity is implied, if not expressed, 
in the fundamental law of all national governments. It is safe to assert that no 
government proper ever had a provision in its organic law for its own termination. 
Continue to execute all the express provisions of our National Constitution, and the 
Union will endure forever, it being impossible to destroy it except by some action 
not provided for in the instrument itself. 

Again, if the United States be not a government proper, but an association of 
States in the nature of a contract merely, can it, as a contract, be peaceably unmade 
by less than all the parties who made it? One party to a contract may violate it — 
break it, so to speak ; but does it not require all to lawfully rescind it ? Descending, 
from these general principles, we find the proposition, that in legal contemplation 
the Union is perpetual, confirmed by the history of the Union itself. 

The Union is much older than the Constitution. It was formed, in fact, by the 
Articles of Association in 1774. It was matured and continued in the Declaration 
of Independence in 1776. It was further matured, and the faith of all the then thir- 
teen States expressly plighted and engaged that it should be perpetual, by the 
Articles of the Confederation, in 1778 ; and finally, in 1787, one of the declared ob- 
jects for ordaining and establishing the Constitution was to form a more perfect 
Union. But if the destruction of the Union by one or by a part only of the States 
be lawfully possible, the Union is less perfect than before, the Constitution having 
lost the vital element of perpetuity. 

It follows from these views that no State, upon its own mere motion, can lawfully 
get out of the Union ; that resolves and ordinances to that effect are legally void; 
and that acts of violence within any State or States against the authority of the 
United States are insurrectionary or revolutionary, according to circumstances. 

I therefore consider that, in view of the Constitution and the laws, the Union is 
unbroken, and, to the extent of my ability, I shall take care, as the Constitution 
itself expressly enjoins upon me, that the laws of the Union shall be faithfully executed 
in all the States. Doing this, which I deem to be only a simple duty on my part, 
I shall perfectly perform it, so far as is practicable, unless my rightful masters, the 
American people, shall withhold the requisition, or in some authoritative manner 
direct the contrary. 

Lincoln's Second Inaugural. 

[Delivered at Washington, March 4, 1865. Characterized by Rhodes as "the greatest of presidential inaugu- 
rals, one of the noblest of state papers."] 

Fellow Countrymen: At this second appearing to take the oath of the Presi- 
dential office, there is less occasion for an extended address than there was at the 
first. Then a statement somewhat in detail of a course to be pursued seemed very 
fitting and proper. Now, at the expiration of four years, during which public dec- 
larations have been constantly called forth on every point and phase of the great 
contest which still absorbs the attention and engrosses the energies of the nation, 
little that is new could be presented. 

The progress of our arms, upon which all else chiefly depends, is as well known 
to the public as to myself; and it is, I trust, reasonably satisfactory and encourag- 



32 

ing to all. With high hope for the future, no prediction in regard to it is ventured. 

On the occasion corresponding to this, four years ago, all thoughts were anxiously 
■directed to an impending civil war. All dreaded it; all sought to avoid it. While 
the inaugural address was being delivered from this place, devoted altogether to 
saving the Union without war, insurgent agents were in the city seeking to destroy 
it without war — seeking to dissolve the Union and divide the effects by negotiation. 
Both parties deprecated war ; but one of them would make war rather than let the 
nation survive, and the other would accept war rather than let it perish; and the 
war came. 

( hir eighth of the whole population were colored slaves, not distributed generally 
over the Union, but localized in the southern part of it. These slaves constituted 
i peculiar and powerful interest. All knew that this interest was somewhat the 
se of the war. To strengthen, perpetuate, and extend this interest, was the object 
for which the insurgents would rend the Union, even by war, while the Government 
claimed no right to do more than to restrict the territorial enlargement of it. 

.Wither party expected for the war the magnitude or the duration which it lias 
already attained. Neither anticipated that the cause of the conflict might cease 
with, or even before, the conflict itself should cease. Each looked for an easier tri- 
umph, and a result less fundamental and astounding. 

Both read the same Bible and pray to the same God, and each invokes His aid 
against the other. It may seem strange that any men should dare to ask a just 
God's assistance in wringing their bread from the sweat of other men's faces; but 
let us judge not that we be not judged. The prayers of both could not be 
answered. That of neither has been answered fully. 

The Almighty has His own purposes. " Woe unto the world because of offenses! 
for it must needs be that offenses come- but woe to that man by whom the offense 
i ometh." It we shall suppose that American slavery is one of these offenses which 
in the providence of God must needs come, but which having continued through His 
appointed time He now wills to remove, and that He gives to both North and South 
this terrible war as the woe due to those by whom the offense came, shall we discern 
therein any departure from those divine attributes which the believers in a living 
God always ascribe to Him? Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray, that this 
mighty Bcourge of war may soon pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue until 
all the wealth piled by the bondsman's two hundred and fiftj years of unrequited 
toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid 

With another drawn with the BWOrd, .i- Was said three thousand veais ago, s.> still 

it must b( lid, The judgments oi the Lord are true and righteous altogether." 

With malice towards none ; with charity for all; with firmness in the right as God 
giv( ■ ■ • the right, let us strive on t<> finish the work we are in j to bind up 

the nation's wound . to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his 
widow and orphan . to do all whieh in.iv achieve and cherish a just and a lasting 
pea< e among ourselves, and with all nations. 



33 



IV. 

LIFE OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

BY HORATIO B. KNOX. 

Abraham Lincoln, a Virginia pioneer, had followed Daniel Boone over the Wilder- 
ness Road into the Dark and Bloody ground beyond the mountains. One morning, 
in the year 1784, with his three sons, Mordecai, Joseph, and Thomas, Abraham Lin- 
coln was felling trees at the edge of his clearing. Suddenly the report of a rifle 
rang through the forest, and the father fell dead across the trunk of a tree which 
had just fallen beneath his axe. The elder brothers fled, leaving little Thomas alone 
with the body of his father. Mordecai reached the cabin, seized his rifle, and saw 
through a loophole in the logs a painted Indian, just stooping to raise the child 
from the ground. A well-directed shot brought the savage low, and the little boy 
thus released escaped in safety to the cabin. Thus begins, as it must end, in 
tragedy, all the story we have to tell of the Abraham Lincoln, the hundredth anni- 
versary of whose birth we are celebrating; for that little Thomas lived to be the 
father of the martyred president. 

Here is Theodore Roosevelt's picture of the Kentucky of those days: "Almost 
to the very doorsills of the rude cabins swept the solemn and mysterious forest. 
The sunlight could not penetrate the leafy canopy. Through the gray aisles of the 
forest men walked always in a kind of mid-day twilight. All that lay hidden within 
and beyond that wilderness none could tell. Men only knew that it was the home 
of the game they followed, and of the wild beasts that preyed upon their flocks, 
and that deep in its tangled depths lurked their red foes, sleepless, hawk-eyed, and 
wolf-hearted." 

Twenty-two years after the tragedy which opens our story, when Thomas Lincoln 
married Nancy Hanks, Kentucky had changed somewhat. But there was no hint 
of future glory and greatness in the wedding and bringing home of this wilderness 
bride. Her husband brought her to a forest home about fifty miles south of Louis- 
ville, and there "he and she and want dwelt in a cabin fourteen feet square." Into 
this home, deep in the sombre shadow of the woods, came, on February 12, 1809, a 
baby boy, Abraham, you see, because he was to be the father of a great people. 

When Abraham was seven years of age the family abandoned the Kentucky home 
for one more wretched in the dense forests of southern Indiana. Against the inde- 
scribable hardships of this new venture, early in October, 1818, Nancy Hanks Lin- 
coln gave up the struggle. Abraham helped his father make a rude casket, and in 
a little opening in the forest they buried her who, all unconsciously, had blessed 
the world as perhaps only one other mother has since the dawn of time. 



34 

During the year that followed, the father and his motherless children sounded 
all the depths of misery. Then came a change for the better. Thomas Lincoln 
went to Kentucky and brought back a new mother for his Abraham and his sister. 
Sarah Bush Johnson became indeed a true mother to the forlorn little children of 
Nancy Hanks. 

Thomas Lincoln developed sudden and unwonted energies. Before long glass 
windows went into the vacant frames, a door into the uncovered doorway, a good 
wooden floor lifted the cabin occupants from the damp ground, and warm clothing 
soon protected shivering little bodies from the icy blasts of an Indiana winter. 

But the best thing Sarah Johnson did for young Abraham was to secure him a 
little schooling, about a year in all, to inspire him with a great ambition, and a reso- 
lute purpose to achieve success at any cost. How thus inspired and helped during 
the next ten years young Lincoln did a man's work in the field and forest by day, 
and at night, by the light of the cabin fire, read books borrowed far and wide, 
wrote and ciphered on the puncheon floor, the wooden fire shovel, or a piece of 
fence rail, and how meanwhile he attained a height of six feet four inches, and 
became famed for enormous feats of strength, is a story too long to tell here. 
These were the books he read: The Bible, Robinson Crusoe, Pilgrim's Progress, 
^Esop's Fables, a History of the United States, Weem's Life of Washington, a dic- 
tionary, and the Revised Statutes of Indiana. 

Such was the boyhood background of the great president. Do not suppose for 
one instant that we are dealing with an unnatural youth or a heaven-born genius. 
The only genius Lincoln ever knew was the genius for hard work. He differed from 
otlur boys only in his resolute purpose to succeed, and his willingness to pay the 
price of success. 

By another family migration, Lincoln, at the age of twenty years, became a citi- 
zen of Illinois, that noble state which in the day of fate gave still another ol her 
sons to lead to victory the armies of the republic, Ulysses S. Grant. 

Than the life of Lincoln, during the years immediately following his twenty-tiist 
birthday, nothing could be Less prophetic oi greatness. He worked as a flat-boat- 
man, at 50 1 cuts per day; he clerked in a store, lie studied surveying, he failed in a 
general store ol his own. But, thriftless as he seemed, somehow, all this time, lie 
lining the esteem, confidence, and affection oi every man, woman, and child 

in the county, and was even then known far and wide as " Honest Abe." 

liven before his grocery business had "winked out," a-- lie said, Lincoln 
had been Btudying law, and was at length admitted to the bar, ami began 
pin tiie in Springfield, 111. Prom about 1 ■- 15 his lite is an open book. Tin- 
is not the place to tell of his great careei how lie was repeatedly elected to 
the legislature, how .1- a lawyer on circuit b< became a familiar and welcome 
figure in ever) county oi Illinois; how he became famous for absolute integrity, 

sound judgmt nt. and rugged Common sense, as well a- lor a certain quaint wit and 

huiuoi win. ii made him the delight of the judge, the jury, or the crowd. Lincoln 



35 

soon became leader of his party in the State, In 1846 he was elected to Congress. 
Ten years later his wonderful debate with Stephen A. Douglas, in a contest for a 
United States senatorship from Illinois, indeed failed to gain the immediate prize, 
but gave him a national reputation, which eventually won for him the nomination 
and election to the presidency. Of the four years of blood and fire that followed, 
a thousand books are full. Our own fathers can tell us of the spasm of agony that 
swept the nation's heart-strings at the awful tragedy which closed the scene. 

Abraham Lincoln fell by the assassin's bullet in April, 1865, in the midst of nation- 
al rejoicings at the return of peace. He was but fifty-six years of age; but he had 
lived long enough to save the great republic, to set free a nation of slaves, and to 
prove for all time that, in America at least, there is no birth so humble, and no cir- 
cumstances so adverse, as to prevent manliness, industry, and integrity from reach- 
ing the highest positions of honor and of service. 

Lincoln's Autobiography. 

I was born February 12, 1809, in Hardin County, Kentucky. My parents were 
both born in Virginia, of undistinguished families— second families, perhaps I should 
say. My mother, who died in my tenth year, was of a family of the name of Hanks, 
some of whom now reside in Adams, and others in Macon County, Illinois. My 
paternal grandfather, Abraham Lincoln, emigrated from Rockingham County, Vir- 
ginia, to Kentucky about 1781 or 1782, where a year or two later he was killed by the 
Indians, not in battle, but by stealth, when he was laboring to open a farm in the 
forest. His ancestors, who were Quakers, went to Virginia from Berks County, 
Pennsylvania. An effort to identify them with the New England family of the same 
name ended in nothing more definite than a similarity of Christian names in both 
families, such as Enoch, Levi, Mordecai, Solomon, Abraham, and the like. 

My father, at the death of his father, was but six years of age, and he grew up 
literally without education. He removed from Kentucky to what is now Spencer 
County, Indiana, in my eighth year. We reached our new home about the time the 
State came into the Union. It was a wild region, with many bears and other wild 
animals still in the woods. There I grew up. There were some schools, so-called, 
but no qualification was ever required of a teacher beyond " readin', writin', and 
cipherin' " to the rule of three. If a straggler supposed to understand Latin hap- 
pened to sojourn in the neighborhood he was looked upon as a wizard. There was 
absolutely nothing to excite ambition for education. Of course, when I came of age 
I did not know much. Still, somehow, I could read, write, and cipher to the rule of 
three, but that was all. I have not been to school since. The little advance I now 
have upon this store of education I have picked up from time to time under pressure 
of necessity. 

I was raised to farm work, which I continued till I was twenty-one. At twenty- 
one I came to Illinois, Macon County. Then I got to New Salem, at that time in 
Sangamon, now in Menard, County, where I remained a year as a sort of clerk in a 



36 

store. Then came the Black Hawk war, and I was elected captain of volunteers, a 
success which gave me more pleasure than any I have had since. I went into the 
campaign, was elated, ran for the legislature the same year (1832), and was beaten— 
the only time I have ever been beaten by the people. The next and three succeed- 
ing biennial elections I was elected to the legislature. I was not a candidate after- 
ward. During this legislative period I had studied law, and removed to Springfield 
to practice it. In 1846 I was once elected to the lower House of Congress. Was 
not a candidate for re-election. From 1S49 to 1S54, both inclusive, practiced law 
more assiduously than ever before. Always a Whig in politics; and generally on 
the Whig electoral tickets, making active canvasses. I was losing interest in poli- 
tics when the repeal of the Missouri compromise aroused me again. What I have 
done since that is pretty well known. 

If any personal description of me is thought desirable, it may be said I am. in 
height, six feet four inches, nearly; lean in flesh, weighing on an average one hun- 
dred and eighty pounds; dark complexion, with coarse black hair and gray eyes- 
No other marks or brands recollected. 

Yours truly, 

Abraham Lincoln. 

Springfield, December 20, 1859. 



When the compiler of the Dictionary of Congress was preparing that work for 
publication in 1S58, he sent Mr. Lincoln the usual request for a sketch of his life, to 
w hi. h lie received, in June of that year, the following reply: 

Bom Februarj u. 1809, ill Hardin County, Kentucky. 

Education defective. 

Prof< ssion, a lawyer. 

Have been a captain of volunteers in Black Hawk War. 
Postmaster at a very small office. 

Pour times a member of the Illinois legislature, and was a member of the lowei 
of Congi 

Yours, etc., 

a Lincoln, 



37 



V. 



LINCOLN'S FAVORITE POEMS. 



Immortality. 

Oh ! why should the spirit of mortal be proud ? 
Like a swift, fleeting meteor— a fast-flying cloud— 
A flash of the lightning— a break of the wave 
He passeth from life to his rest in the grave. 

The leaves of the oak and the willow shall fade, 
Be scattered around, and together be laid; 
And the young, and the old, and the low, and the high, 
Shall moulder to dust and together shall lie. 

The infant, a mother attended and loved; 
The mother, that infant's affection who proved; 
The father, that mother and infant who blest- 
Each, all, are away to their dwellings of rest. 

The maid on whose brow, on whose cheek, in whose 

eye, 
Shone beauty and pleasure— her triumphs are by; 
And alike from the minds of the living erased 
Are the memories of those who loved her and praised. 

The hand of the king, that the sceptre hath borne. 
The brow of the priest, that the mitre hath worn, 
The eye of the sage, and the heart of the brave. 
Are hidden and lost in the depths of the grave. 

The peasant, whose lot was to sow and to reap; 
The herdsman, who climbed with his goats up the 

steep; 
The beggar, who wandered in search of his bread; 
Have faded away like the grass that we tread. 

The saint, who enjoyed the communion of heaven; 
The sinner, who dared to remain unforgiven; 
The wise and the foolish, the guilty and just, 
Have quietly mingled their bones in the dust. 



So the multitude goes, like the flower or weed 
That withers away to let others succeed; 
So the multitude comes, even those we behold. 
To repeat every tale that has often been told. 

For we are the same our fathers have been; 
We see the same sights our fathers have seen; 
We drink the same stream, we view the same sun, 
And run the same course our fathers have run. 

The thoughts we are thinking our fathers did think; 
From the death we are shrinking our fathers did 

shrink; 
To the life we are clinging our fathers did cling — 
But it speeds from us all like a bird on the wing. 

They loved — but the story we cannot unfold; 

They scorned — but the heart of the haughty is cold; 

They grieved — but no wail from their slumbers will 

come; 
They enjoyed — but the tongue of their gladness is 

dumb. 

They died— ay ! they died— we things that are now. 
That walk on the turf that lies over their brow, 
And make in their dwellings a transient abode, 
Meet the things that they met on their pilgrimage 
rOad. 

Yea, hope and despondency, pleasure and pain, 
Are mingled together in sunshine and rain; 
And the smile and the tear, the song and the dirge. 
Still follow each other, like surge upon surge. 

'Tis the wink of an eye, 'tis the draught of a breath, 
From the blossom of health to the paleness of death; 
From the gilded saloon to the bier and the shroud — 
Oh ! why should the spirit of mortal be proud ! 

— // 7///<i <i Kno r. 



38 



The Last Leaf. 



I saw him once before. 
As he passed by the door. 

And again 
The pavement stones resound. 
As he totters o'er the ground. 

With his cane. 

They say that in his prime, 
Ere the pruning-knife of time 

Cut him down, 
Not a better man was found 
By the crier on his round 

Through the town. 

Hut now he walks the streets, 
And he looks at all he meets 

Sad and wan. 
And he shakes his feeble head, 
That it seems as if he said, 

" They are gone." 

The mossy marbles rest 

On the lips that he has prest 

In their bloom. 
And the names he loved to hear 
Have been carved for many a year 

On the tomb. 



M y grandmamma has said — 
Pcior old lady, she is dead 

Long ago — 
That he had a Roman nose. 
And his cheek was like a rose 

In the snow. 

I ; n iw his nose is thin, 
And it rests upon his chin 

Like a staff, 
And a crook is in his back, 
And a melancholy crack 

In his laugh. 

I know it is a sin 
For me to sit and grin 

At him here ; 
But the old three-cornered hat, 
And the breeches, and all that, 

Are so queer ! 

If I should live CO be 
The last leaf upon the tree 

In the spring, 
Let them smile, as I do now, 
At the old forsaken bough 

Where 1 cling. 

—Oliver Wendell Holmes. 



If you cannot on the ocean 

s.ni among the swiftest fleet, 
Roi king "ii the highest billow s, 

Laughing ;•' • "" me* t, 

You • .in stand among the sai 

An, bored yet wit bin the 
You i an lend ■ hand to help th< m 

As they launi b theit l»'.its an ay, 

I f you are i"" weal* to journey 

mountain steep and high, 
in stand within the v alley 
While the multit in ! 

. i, .mi in happy mi 
As they slowly , 
■ 
They 

i. .in, I. 
, hand, 



Your Mission. 

Lincoln's Favorite Hymn. 

You can visit the afflicted, 

O'er the erring you can weep, 
Vou can In- a true disciple, 
Sitting .it the S.u tour's feet 



I f you cannot in the conflit I 

true, 

I I where smoke and tirr ;irr t bit kest 

|| HI , i you t'> do, 

When the battlefield is silent 

with i. ii lul trt 
\ ,ni , .in bear away th<- wounded, 
Y,,ii can • ,,\ .r up the dead 

■ then stand idly waiting 

.ii, i work i 
Fortum goddess 

She « ill ne\ • i i ome i" you; 
ind toil ni .ii 

| i : d.ili . 

ii \ ou want -i t!< Id "t I • 
nd it anywhi 

(May be sunk to the turn "' "' 

i 



39 

VI. 

STORIES OF LINCOLN. 

An Incident of the War. 

It is told that when the Civil War was raging, and men were falling by thousands, 
Abraham Lincoln would often go into the hospitals in Washington and talk with the 
wounded, sometimes the dying. One evening he stopped at the bed of a young soldier 
just brought in, who had lost both legs in a recent battle. " Is there anything I can 
do for you?" asked the tender-hearted President. "Yes," said the young man 
faintly. " Will you write a letter to my father and mother, and tell them that I died 
at my post of duty ? " He wrote the letter, and beneath it the words, " This letter 
was written by Abraham Lincoln," and gave it to the young man, who read it. Look- 
ing up into his face, he asked, "Are you the President?" "Yes, is there anything 
else I can do for you?" The dying youth smiled, and said, "You might stay and 
see me through." President Lincoln drew his chair closer, took the weak hand in 
his own, and held it until the end. He saw him through. 



Lincoln's Magnanimity. 



Upon the second day of the decisive battle of Gettysburg President Lincoln wrote 
an official order, as Commander in Chief, to General Meade, the Union commander, 
directing him to intercept Lee's retreat and give him another battle. The general 
had been in command of the army but five or six days, and as his predecessors had been 
much criticised for failures, the President knew he would be cautious about risking 
a battle after having gained one. He sent the order by a special messenger, with a 
private note saying that this seemed to him to be the thing to do, but that he would 
leave it to the ultimate decision of the military commander on the ground. The 
official order was not a matter of record, and he said need not be. If Meade would 
undertake the movement, and it was successful, he need say nothing about it. If it 
failed, he could publish the order immediately. In other words : "Go ahead. Make 
an heroic attempt to annihilate that army in its disheartened state and before it can 
recross the river. If the attempt succeeds, you take the glory of it; and if it fails 
I will take the responsibility of it." 



A clergyman, calling at the White House, in speaking of the war said to the 
President, " I hope the Lord is on our side." 

"I am not at all concerned about that," replied Lincoln, "for I know that the 
Lord is always on the side of the right. But it is my constant anxiety and prayer 
that I and this nation should be on the Lord's side." 



40 

Several months before President Lincoln issued the great proclamation of emanci- 
pation which gave- freedom to the whole race of negro slaves in America, writes 
Adlai Stevenson in the Woman's World, my friend, Senator Henderson, of Missouri, 
came to the White House one day and found Mr. Lincoln in a mood of deepest de- 
pression. Finally, the great President said to his caller and friend that the most 
constant and acute pressure was being brought upon him by the leaders of the 
radical element of his party to free the slaves. 

"Sumner and Stevens and Wilson simply haunt me," declared Mr. Lincoln, "with 
their importunities for a proclamation of emancipation. Wherever I go and what- 
ever way I turn they are on my trail. And still, in my heart, I have the deep con- 
viction that the hour has not yet come." 

Just as he said this, he walked to the window looking out upon Pennsylvania 
avenue and stood there in silence, his tall figure silhouetted against the list of the 
window pane, every line of it, and of his gracious face, expressive of unutterable sad- 
ness. Suddenly his lips began to twitch into a smile and his somber eyes lighted 
with a twinkle of something like mirth. 

"The only schooling I ever had, Henderson," he remarked, "was in a log school- 
house when reading liooks and grammars were unknown. All our reading was done 
from the Scriptures, and we stood up in a long line ami read in turn from the Bible, 
< >ur lesson mie day was the story of the faithful Israelites who were thrown into the 
fiery furnace and delivered by the hand of the Lord without so much as the smell of 
lire upon their garments. It fell to one little fellow to read the verse in which oc- 
curred, for the first time in tin chapter, the nanus of Shadrach, Meshach, and Ahed- 
nego. Little Hud stumbled on Shadrach, floundered on Meshach, and went all to 
pieces on Abed-negO. Instantly the hand of the master dealt him a cuff on the side 
of the head and left him wailing and blubbering as the next hoy in line took up the 

ding. I'm befon the girl at the end of the line had done reading he had sub- 
Bided into sniffles and finally lie. aim- quiet. His blunder and disgrace were forgot- 
ten by the others of the class until his turn was approaching to read again. Then, 

like a thunder* lap out of a clear sky, lie set up a wail that even alarmed the master, 

who, with rather unusual gentleness, inquired: 

" ' What's tin- mat ter now ' 

" Pointing with a shaking finger at the verse which a few moments later would 

i a 11 to hi in to read, Bud managed to quaver out the answer 
■■ ■ Look there, marsti i thi u nes them same three fellers agin!'" 

Then Ids whole 1. 1, e lighted with such a smile as only Lincoln could give, and he 

ed Senatoi Henderson to his side, silently pointing his long, bonj finger to 

three men who were at that moment , rossing Pennsylvania avenue toward the door 
ot the White House, They were Sumner, Wilson, and Thaddeus Stevens. 



41 

It is stated that a gentleman from a northern city entered Mr. Lincoln's private 
office in the spring of 1862, and earnestly requested a pass to Richmond. "A pass 
to Richmond!" exclaimed the President. "Why, my dear sir, if I should give you 
one it would do you no good. You may think it very strange, but there's a lot of 
fellows between here and Richmond who either can't read or are prejudiced against 
every man who totes a pass from me. I have given McClellan and more than 200,- 
000 others passes to Richmond, and not one of them has yet gotten there! " 



At a levee at the White House, during President Lincoln's term, the Russian 
Ambassador stood talking to the President, when the President asked him this ques- 
tion: "Would you have taken me for an American if you had met me anywhere 
else than in this country?" 

" No," said the distinguished Muscovite, who, like old Abe, was a bit of a wag, " I 
should have taken you for a Pole." 

" So I am," exclaimed the President, straightening himself up to his full attitude, 
" and a liberty Pole at that." 



General Horace Porter, in his eulogy of Abraham Lincoln, said that the great war 
President wasn't much as a champagne drinker. The General recalled a visit of Mr. 
Lincoln to City Point. On his arrival the General said that Mr. Lincoln was suffer- 
ing from the gastronomic disturbances incident to most folks who have sailed on 
rough water. " A young staff officer, very previous, he was," said the General, 
"grabbed a bottle of champagne and thrust it towards Mr. Lincoln, saying that that 
was the very thing he needed. ' No, young man,' Mr. Lincoln said, ' I have seen too 
many fellows seasick ashore from drinking that very article.'" 



During the rebellion an Austrian count applied to President Lincoln for a position 
in the army. Being introduced by the Austrian minister, he needed, of course, no 
further recommendation; but, as if fearing that his importance might not be duly 
appreciated, he proceeded to explain that he was a count; that his family were 
ancient and highly respectable; when Lincoln, with a merry twinkle in his eye, tap- 
ping the aristocratic lover of titles on the shoulder, in a fatherly way, as if the man 
had confessed to some wrong, interrupted in a soothing tone, "Nevermind; you 
shall be treated with just as much consideration for all that." 



In one of his campaign speeches Lincoln was interrupted by some one in the au- 
dience who, thinking to humiliate him by reminding the people of his poverty, called 
out in the midst of his speech: " Mr. Lincoln, is it true that you entered this State 
barefooted, driving a yoke of oxen?" After a pause, the speaker replied that he 
thought he could prove the fact by at least a dozen men in the crowd, any one of 
whom was more respectable than his questioner. 



42 

In Springfield a prominent citizen and legislator named Forquer had built himself 
a new house upon which he had set up a lightning-rod, the only one in that part of 
the world. This man had recently deserted the Whig party and become a Demo- 
crat, and his disloyalty to his former principles had just been rewarded by appoint- 
ment to an office that brought him a good income, but cost him the respect of many 
of his former associates. Lincoln's friend, Speed, tells how, after one of Lincoln's 
campaign speeches, Forquer asked leave to be heard. He commenced by saying that 
the young man, Lincoln, would have to be "taken down," and that he was sorry the 
task had fallen to him. He went on to answer Lincoln's speech in away that showed 
how much older and wiser he thought himself than the young upstart whose ambi- 
tion it had become Ids duty to rebuke. Lincoln waited until Forquer had finished, 
but his flashing eve showed that he did not intend to accept such treatment meekly. 
He closed his reply to Forquer by saying: " The gentleman has seen fit to allude to 
niv being a young man; but he forgets that I am older in years than I am in the 
tricks and trades of politicians. I desire to live, and I desire place and distinction ; 
but T would rather die now, than, like the gentleman, live to see the day that T 
would change my politics for an office worth three thousand dollars a year, and 
then feel compelled to erect a lightning-rod to protect a guilty conscience from an 
offended God." 

Here fin Indiana), for another year, the mother suffered from the exposure for 
which she was so little fitted and against which she was so ill-protected. Then came 
a dread disease which struck down people and cattle alike. From this plague, there 
being no physician within thirty miles to care for her, Nancy Lincoln died. Father 
and son cul down a tree, and out of the green timber built a rough box for her 
burial. In the wood- near by they made her a grave and laid her to rest. 

Nol long before this, cousins had come from Kentucky to live near them. Some 
of these cousins also died of the plague, and so then' were other graves to dig, and 
strange boxes for the boy to help fashion. The children became familiar with the 
mystery of death. Nancy and Abe wen- now eleven and nine years old, too young 
to know how to make the home comfortable, and too lonely to keep up the father's 
spirits It seemed impossible for the disheartened man to give them proper cloth- 
ing and food. The cabin continued doorless and windowless and forlorn. 

Abe was a most affectionate child, and the idea of leaving the dead mother alone 
in those dreadful woods, with no religious service, and no prayer except the unex- 
pressed cry from his own heart, was more than he could bear. In some way he had 
learned to write a fair hand. He painfully wrote out a letter and gave it to a trav- 
eler into Kentit' kv. to be delivered, whenever lie could be found, to the missionary 

preacher, David Elkin, who had been their friend years before. Many months after- 
ward the good preacher found his way to the settlement on Little Pigeon Creek and 
preached the funeral Bermon by the grave of Nancy Hanks Lincoln, paying t-> her 
memory the tribute of praise that the little boy had hungered to hear To this 

. m ,- came women. 00 h orse 1 >a< k , from neighboring settlements, carrying their 

< hildren on the saddle bow, while the men trudged beside them through the woods. 
And from that <\a\ these neighbors kepi in their friendly sympathy the serious, 
odd looking boy, understanding his Borrow and wondering what dreams there were 
in the depths ol his mj Bterious • 

Clod make IIS worthy of the memory of Abraham Lincoln. 

— Phillips Brooks, 



43 

VII. 

STORY OF A LINCOLN PORTRAIT. 

The Lincoln portrait appearing as the frontispiece in this issue of the Flag Day- 
Annual was produced from an ante-presidential photograph of Lincoln, which is de- 
scribed in the following sketch as "Portrait, No. i." The copyright of this photo- 
graph is owned by George B. Ayres, 4048 Walnut Street, Philadelphia, to whom we 
are indebted for courteous permission to reproduce " the most literal and character- 
istic" likeness of the real Lincoln. 

" When Abraham Lincoln was first nominated for the Presidency, by the Republi- 
can National Convention, assembled in Chicago, May 16th, i860, there was an imme- 
diate demand for his picture. 

" Responding to this, his Chicago friends, early in June following, commissioned 
their most competent photograher to visit Mr. Lincoln at Springfield, 111. (his home), 
and obtain the desired negative of the coming President. 

■'The great nominee was a little surprised at the photographer's call, remarking 
that he 'could not see why any one wanted a picture of his ugly face; but he would 
sit to please his friends, if they wished it.' 

" The photographer's visit resulted in obtaining two negatives, both now in my 
possession ; and these are, so far as known, the only original ante-presidential nega- 
tives in existence ! 

"When proofs of the sittings were shown to Mr. Lincoln afterwards, he selected 
the picture — now my portrait No. 1 — which has met with such popular favor, saying: 
' Well, that expresses me better than any I have seen. If it pleases the people, I 
am satisfied.' 

" Just here it may be stated, that the second negative — now my Portrait No. 2 — 
contained some technical defects, which at that time prevented obtaining satisfac- 
tory proofs from it; but modern processes have solved the difficulty, and given us 
prints whereby we obtain a new revelation in Lincoln portraiture. 

" In 1866 I became proprietor of the old and well-known Hesler Gallery — located at 
No. 113 Lake street, between Clark and Dearborn streets, which was at that time 
the centre-point of old Chicago's shopping business. It was in this Gallery I dis- 
covered my Lincoln negatives. 

" The process by which negatives were obtained in those early days of photography 
is designated 'Wet Plate' — in contradistinction to the ' Dry Plate' method in use to- 
day. Every photographer was obliged to prepare his own plates, fresh for each 
sitting; and the negatives had to be taken at once, while the plate was 'wet.' 
Nowadays the photographer buys his ' dry plates' all ready for use, and he is not 
handicapped by any one of the drawbacks which afflicted his ancient brother. 



44 

" Reminiscent of the old 'wet plate' process, the 'ragged edge' which borders 
the background of my photographs is purposely retained, in confirmation of their 
being produced from these original 'wet plate' negatives. 

"In the old order of things, Economy was assiduously practiced by using the glass 
plates several times over. Hence it was customary to overhaul the stored negatives 
from time to time, and weed out such as might be deemed of no further use or 
value. Then, by subjecting them to an acid bath, that cleaned off the collodion 
film with which the plate had been coated, fresh glass was obtained for new work. 

" It was while once engaged in culling out these obsolete negatives, I came upon 
the priceless ones I now have of Abraham Lincoln. They had been shelved for 
many years, and somehow had fortunately escaped consignment to the acid pot. The 
discovery was not wholly a surprise to me, as prints from them were among the 
familiar specimen-pictures hanging in the gallery. Xor had I any feeling of special 
interest in them apart from the fact that they were old negatives of a famous Illi- 
nois lawyer who had become President. I did not attach any particular value to 
them as likenesses, because I had never before seen any representation of Presi- 
dent Lincoln without a beard ! nor was his portrait then known to the country at 
large as here given with a shaven face. 

"However, I laid the negatives aside — probably for future consideration — and I 
have no recollection of anything more concerning the disposal of them at that time. 
But it is not unlikely that the universal grief owing to the President's tragic death, 
which at that time enshrouded the heart of the nation, induced me to wrap them 
up and include them among my personal effects, simply as mementos of the lamented 
Lincoln. 

"In June, i B67, I sold the 1 rallery, removed to Buffalo, and afterwards to Philadel- 
phia. Singularly, the Gallery was burned out within five weeks after my departure, 
and The Great Fire, which destroyed the entire city, occurred October 9, [871 
Thus, by my timely removal, the Lincoln negatives happily escaped destruction. 
The sequel shows that I ' builded better than I knew.' 

"These negatives remained among my effects— 'out of sight, out of mind' — for- 
gotten. Bui the appearance of a beardless picture of Lincoln in Harpers Maga- 
zine reminded me of the photographic relics I had laid up a score of years before 
Bringing the negatives to li^ht again, I furnished a print from my Mo. 1 to those 
competent Lincolnians, Messrs. John Hay and John G. Nicolay— who were then 
ted with The Century magazine and who subsequently chose it for the 1< .^\ 
ing portrait (frontispiet eiot their great historical life ol Lincoln, which in--! appeared 
in The ( 'enlury, Noveml ■ 

"The idea ol offering this ante-presidential likeness to the public in general did 
not, however, commend itsell to me until about seven years more had passed. Then 
the extraordinary revival ol interest in the personality ol Abraham Lincoln, our 
martyr-president, throughout the whole country induced me to publish it. 






45 

" To-day these negatives — the first ones taken after he was marked out for the work 
and martyrdom that rendered him immortal — stand pre-eminent in having received 
the approval of Mr. Lincoln himself and his closest friends; and I am confident in 
believing that these 'counterfeit presentments' — which I was enabled, providen- 
tially, to secure to the American people — will continue in all the future to be the ac- 
cepted, true, and indisputable portraits of the great and grand original." 

Lincoln Portraits for Schools. 

The life of Lincoln is a rich heritage for the public schools of the Republic. To 
our children he is the highest type of American our country has produced and the 
truest ideal of American manhood for the inspiration of right conduct. He holds a 
place of honor in our schools and his likeness may worthily adorn the walls of every 
schoolroom. 

In those schools not having a portrait of Lincoln, perhaps the observance of the 
Lincoln Centenary will prompt efforts to obtain one. In the selection of a portrait 
it may be of value to know that the one from which the frontispiece was produced 
may be obtained in large sizes, 14 x 17 inches and 22 x 2S inches. That this portrait 
has the approval of the Department of Education is shown by the selection of it for 
the Flag Day annual. 



Till. 

ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

A Select Reading List. 

Compiled for the " Lincoln Centenary " of the New York Education Department. 

Works. 

Lincoln, Abraham. Speeches. (See Schurz, Carl. Abraham Lincoln. Riverside 
lit. ser. no. 133 and 132, p. 37-SS.) 

First inaugural address, March 4, 1S61. (See Johnston, Alexander, ed. Rep- 
resentative American orations. N. Y. iSSS. v. 3, p. 141-63.) 

Gettysburg address. (See Johnston, Alexander, ed. Representative Ameri- 
can orations. N. Y. 1888. v. 3, p. 243-44.) 

Second inaugural address, March 4, 1S65. (See Johnston, Alexander, ed. Rep- 
resentative American orations. N. Y. 18SS. v. 3, p. 245-48.) 



46 

Biograpfiies. 

BlNNS, H. B. Abraham Lincoln. 379 p. 1>. X. Y. [907. Dutton, $1.50. (Temple 
biographic-. 1 A valuable presentation, by an Englishman, of the life and charac- 
ter of the man; nut a history of America during his time. 

HAPGOOD, NORMAN. Abraham Lincoln, the man of the people. 450 p. 1 ). X. V. 
Macmillan, S2. Attempts to portray the man with absolute honesty, setting 
forth faults and shortcomings together with fine and strong characteristics. 

MORSE, J. T., Jr. Abraham Lincoln. 2 v. 1 ). Boston, i><)=.. Houghton. $2.50. 
(American statesmen.) Best brief life of Lincoln. 

Nicolay, John G. A short life of Abraham Lincoln. 578 p. 0. N.. Y. 1902. Cen- 
tury. S2.40. Condensed from Nicolay & Hay's Abraham Lincoln, a history in 10 
volume-. 

Roths, mi i.. ALONZO. Lincoln, master of men; a study in character. 531 p. 0. 
Bost. Kjo6. Houghton. $3. Interesting and brilliant study from a point of view- 
heretofore little emphasized. 

TARBELL, I. M. & Davis, J. McC. The early life of Abraham Lincoln. 240 p. < '. 
X. V. [896. McClure, Si. Trustworthy, sympathetic account, with good illustra- 
tions. 

Biographies for younger readers. 

Brooks, Noah. Abraham Lincoln; a biography for young people. 47" P- D. N. 

V. [888. Putnam, si. 75. (Boys' and girls' lib. of American biography, v. 3.) 
Coppin, C. C. Abraham Lincoln. 542 p. 0. X. V. 1893. Harper. $3. Strong 

points are its readableness, its happy selection of matter likely to be of general 

interest, and the numerous good illustrations. 
MORGAN, JAMES. Abraham Lincoln, the boy ami the man. 43; p. D. X. V. [908. 

Macmillan, $1.50. Straightforward, simple story of Lincoln's life. 
Nicolay, Helen. The boy's life of Lincoln. 107 p. D. X. V. [906. Century, 
Based upon Nicolay & Hay's life. For upper grades. Originally published 

in St. Nicholas, V. ;; 14, Nov. [095 Nov. [906. 
Sparhawk, F. C. A life of Lincoln for boys. 328 p. D. N. Y. [907. Crowell, 75c. 

Easily understood by children of 12 and older. 
Stoddard, W. 0. The boy Line, .in. 248 p. 1< X. V. [905. Appleton, $1.50. 

Poetry about Lincoln. 
ih,- death of Lincoln. (See Ids poeti,ai work-. Household ed. 

, Phobbi Ourgood presidenl (Se< Cary, Alice & Phoebe. Poetical works, 
1891 p, 
Holmes W. For the services in memory of Lincoln. Boston, June, t8i 
his Complete poetical works Cambridge ed. 1895, p. 208.) 



Howe, M. A. DeW. Memory of Lincoln. Poems selected, with an introduction. 
82 p. S. Boston, 1899. Small, $1. 

Larcom, Lucy, Lincoln's passing bell. (See her poetical works. 1884, p. 103.) 

Lowell, J. R. Extract from the Commemoration ode. (See his Poetical works. 
Household ed. 1890, p. 398.) 

Stedman, E. C. Hand of Lincoln. (See his Poems now first collected. 1897, p. 5; 
also Outlook, v.. 88, p. 259-60, Feb. 1, 1908.) 

Stevenson, B. E. & Stevenson, E. B. Comp. Lincoln's birthday. (See their 
Days and deeds. N. Y. 1906. p. 193-9S. Baker, $1.) A collection of poems re- 
lating to American holidays and great Americans; particularly useful for special 
day programs. 

Whitman, Walt. Memories of President Lincoln. (See his Leaves of grass. 1899, 
p. 255-63.) 

O captain I my captain! (See Stedman, E. C. American anthology. 1900, 

p. 231-32; also, Wiggin, K. D. & Smith, N. A. Golden numbers. 1903, p. 323-24.) 

Prose. 

Andrews, Mrs. M. R. (Shipman). Perfect tribute. 47 p. U. N. Y. 1906. Scribner, 
50c. (See also Scribner, v. 40, p. 17-24, July, 1906.) A story about Lincoln's Gettys- 
burg speech, charmingly written, though not historically accurate. , 

Emerson, R. W. Remarks at the funeral service held in Concord, April 19, 1865. 
(See his complete works. 1S92, v. 11, p. 307-15; see also Schurz, Carl. Abraham 
Lincoln, an essay, 1871-99, p. 77-83. Riverside lit. ser. no. 133.) 

Lowell, J. R. Abraham Lincoln. (See his My study window. 1893, p. 150-77; see 
also Schurz, Carl. Abraham Lincoln. 1871-99, Riverside lit. ser. no. 133 and 132 
P- 7-36). 

Schurz, Carl. Abraham Lincoln, an essay ; the Gettysburg speech and other 
papers by Abraham Lincoln; together with testimonies by Emerson, Whittier, 
Holmes and Lowell, 9S p. D. Bost. 1871-99. Houghton, 40c. (Riverside lit. ser. 
no. 133 and 132). A collection of the most noteworthy brief tributes to Lincoln, 
together with his best speeches; most useful single volume of Lincoln material for 
school use. 

Tarbell, I. M. He knew Lincoln. 40 p. D. N. Y. 1907. McClure, 50c. (See also 
American magazine, Feb., 1907.) An illiterate country storekeeper talks about 
Lincoln in a way that gives a faithful picture and that will appeal to every kind 
of reader. 



48 



TENTING ON THE OLD CAMP GROUND. 



Walter Kittkedge. 




Tenderly 



X 



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E We're tenting to-night on the old camp ground, Give us asong to cheer Our 

2. We've been tenting to-night on the old camp ground. Thinking of days gone by, Of the 

3. Weave tired of war on the old camp ground, Man - y are dead and gone, Of the 

4. We've been fighting to-night on the old camp ground, Man-y are ly - ing near ; Some 



— • • — • — •- — S— L S — 2 — • — • 






wca - ry hearts, a song of home. And friends we love so dear, 
loved ones at home that gave us the hand, And the tear that said " good - bye" 
brave and true who've left their homes, Oth - ers been wound-ed long. 

are dead and some are dy - ing, Man - y the fall - ing tear. 




Chori s. 



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Man-y are the hearts that are wea-ry to-night, Wish-ing for the war to cease; 



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Man-y are the hearts look-ing for theright, To see the dawn of 



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Tenl ing to-night) Tent- ing to-night, Tent- ing <>n the old campground. 
I Dy - ing to-night) I >■. - ing to-night, Dy-ing <>n the old campground, 

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49 



WE ARE COMING, FATHER ABRAHAM. 




-A- 



~d d— 

i. We are com - ing, Fa 

2. If you look a - cross 

3. If you look all up 

4. You have called us and 



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ther 
the 
our 



fs=t^=± 



L. O. Emerson 






A - braham, three hun - died thou - sand 

hill- tops that meet the north - ern 

val - leys where the grow - ing har - vests 



we re com - ing, 



by 



Richmond's blood - y 



-d d '- — — t 



sip ■ 

lines 



more, From Mis - sis 

sky, Long mov - ing 

shine, You may see our sturd 

tide, To lay us down, 



pi's wind - ing stream and from New Eng - land's, 

of ris - ing dust your vi - sion may des - 

- y farm - er boys fast fall - ing in - to 

for Free -dom's sake, our brothers' bones be - 




shore ; We leave our plows and 

cry ; And now the wind, an 

line; And chil - d ten from their 

side, Or from foul trea - son's 



work - shops, our wives • and chil - dren 

in - stant, tears the cloud - y veil a - 

mCth-ers' knees are pull - ing at the 

sav - age grasp to wrench the mur-derous 




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but 



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lent 



dear, With hearts too full for ut - ter- ance, with 

side, And floats a - loft our span - gled flag in glo - ry and in 

weeds, And learn- ing how to reap and sow a - gainst their coun - try's 

blade, And in the face of for - eign foes its frag-mentsto pa - 




tear; We dare not look be - hind us, 

pride, And bay - 'nets in the sunlight gleam 

needs ; And a fare - well group stands weep - ing 

rade. Six hun -died thou - sand loy - al men 



but stead - fast - ly be - 

and bands brave mu - sic 

at ev - 'ry cot - tage 

and true have gone be - 



ht 



--N- 



--N- 



d 



-d~ 



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fore ; We are 

pour ; We are 

door ; We are 

fore ; We are 
Chorus 



com - ing, Fa - ther 
com - ing, Fa - ther 
com - ing 
com - ing 



A-brah am, three 

A-braham,three 

Fa - ther A-braham.three 

Fa - ther A-braham, three 



-I— 



1— 



i 



hun - died thou- sand more, 
hun - died thou - sand more, 
hun - dred thou- sand more, 
hun - dred thou - sand more. 




are com 



re - store, We are 



Lincoln's call for three hundred thousand volunteers brought out the above poem. 
Union camp, at every recruiting station and in every city and hamlet in the north. 



It was an inspiration in every 



50 



WE ARE COMING, FATHER ABRAHAM. 



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a 



com - ing, Fa- ther A-braham, with three hundred thou -sand more; We are 
cres 

com - ing, Fa - ther A - braham, with three hun - dred thou - sand more. 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 



Bryant 



[gnaz Heim 



j ,> 






i. Oh slow to smite and swift to spare.Gen - tie and mer - ci - ful and just !\Yho, 
2. Thy ta>k is done; the bond are free ; We beartheeto an honor'd grave, Whose 

: ■ • . i ' • -&— t *--*-*- • a . : j 

in the fear of God didst bear The sword of power, a na - tion's trust 1 In 
proud -est mon-u - ment shall be The bro - ken fet - teis of the slave. Pure 



S - •> s t 5 - v 6 5 v " c * ■■ 

. ., s : : : . m m * '. ' 



sol row by thy bier we standi A mid theaweth.it hush-es all, And 
w.is thy life; it- blood-y close Hath placed thee with the sons of light, A 

speak the an - guish of a land That Bhook with hor • roi at thy fall; And 
in,n- the no - ble host of those Who per-ishedin the cause of right ; \ - 

5 



' 



» i . -} m , * . . , . . i i * 



9 
9 • 



n guish of a land That shook with hoi roi at thy fall, 
those Who per - ished in the cause of right. 



51 



BATTLE HYMN OF THE REPUBLIC 




Allegretto. 



Julia W. Howe. 






* 



Mine eyes have seen the glo - ry of 
I have seen Him in the watch-fires of 
I have read 






•- 
— i- 

#- 



-«— «— -2 s — 3- 



— fv 
-m— 
-*— 



-- N- 

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the com - ing of the Lord ; He is 

a hun-dred cir -cling camps; They have 

fie - ry gos - pel, writ in burnished rows of steel ; " As ye 

He has sounded forth the trum - pet that shall nev - er call re - treat ; He is 

In the beau - ty of the lil - ies,Christ was born a- cross the sea, With a 




— •— -• — m-, — 3 — •- — • — m~ — * — \- m — — • — t 






I- =5=S ^ S 



trampling out the vin - tage where the grapes of wrath are stored ; He hath loosed the 

build - ed Him an al - tar in the eve -ning dews and clamps ; I can read His 

deal with my con -tern -ners, so with you my grace shall deal; Let the He - ro, 

sift -ing out the hearts of men be -fore His judg-ment seat; Oh, be swift, my 

glo - ry in His bo - som that trans -fig - ures you and me; As He died to 




fate -ful lightning of His ter - ri-ble swift sword, His truth is march - ing on. 

right-eous sentence by the dim and flaring lamps, His day is march - ing on. 

born of \vo-man,crush the serpent with his heel, Since God is march - ing on.' 

soul, to an-swer Him! be ju - bi-lant,my feet! Our God is march - ing on. 

make men ho- ly, let us die to make men free, While God is march - ing on. 



Full Chorus. 



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ry ! glo - ry ! Hal -le - lu 



s S~ 

Glo - ry 1 glo - ry!Hal-le-lu 
«-= P P - P P' P 




Note. This song was inspired by a visit of Mrs. Howe to the " Circling Camps " around Washington, gathered 
the defence of the Capital, early in the War of 1S61-5. Songs of the Nation. 



• 



IN PEACE 



Abraham Lincoln 



FRIEND OF MAN, SERVANT OF GOD 



THE NATION HIS MOURNER 
THE COUNTRY HIS MONUMENT 



(An ins* ription on a marble monument among the symbols ol mourning 
in th<- Church •■! the Incarnation in New York, on the death ol Lincoln in 
April, i -' 




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